Norfolk Wants to Replace Oldest Lesbian Bar on East Coast with a Dog Park

Patrons comfort one another on Oct. 31 as the Hershee Bar prepares to close.

The City of Norfolk, Virginia has moved light years from where it was 15 years or more ago when the then mayor acted as if LGBT individuals were radioactive. Now, the City is the largest sponsor of Pride Fest and the Norfolk police department has moved from harassing gays for laughs and giggles to now having a facilitator with LGBT community.  That said, the City remains stone deaf in other ways and its alliance with the LGBT community would appear to be a fraud.  The ongoing drama surrounding the Hershee Bar - the oldest lesbian bar on the East Coast is a case in point.  The City is purchasing the property where the Hershee Bar is located as part of a "redevelopment plan."  Unfortunately, the City wants to replace the Hershee Bar with a dog park.  The message could not be much more derogatory towards the local LGBT community. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the disturbing plans of the City of Norfolk and, in the process gives Norfolk negative publicity across America and the globe.  Personally, I believe it is time for Hampton Roads Pride to approach the City of Virginia Beach or perhaps the City of Hampton to host the 2019 Pride Fest event. Perhaps that would send a much needed message to Norfolk.  If you agree, please share this post.  Here are excerpts from the Post article: 

Two days before learning what would become of Norfolk’s embattled lesbian bar, a group of students and activists toured the city’s LGBTQ history.

It was filled with graveyards — a hotel that used to be a gay bookstore, a parking garage where drag queens used to dance.

When the group stopped at the Hershee Bar — Norfolk’s only dedicated space for bisexual, lesbian and queer-identifying women — the owners were packing up 35 years of history, piling it on tables around the bar.

The last of its kind in Norfolk and one of the oldest lesbian bars on the East Coast, the Hershee Bar was shuttered Oct. 31 to make way for a planned revitalization of the Five Points corridor. Last week, activists who spent months trying to persuade Norfolk officials to save the bar learned what would replace it: A dog park.

The announcement rattled those at a Norfolk City Council meeting who were prepared to continue lobbying city leaders for an alternative plan that didn’t involve razing the property. Several people cried.

It means a little more to some of us than a place for people to walk their dogs,” said Jennifer Alomari, who stood before the council in a white T-shirt that bore the words “We are Hershee bar.” She took deep breaths to steady herself before continuing. “It’s a little more than a park. They closed the door to our home.”

Council members and Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander (D) didn’t respond to requests for comment about the bar, the park or redevelopment plans.

Activists who have lobbied them since June said they have been denied meetings with city officials. Until last week, they said, they didn’t know a plan was in the works.

Jackie Rochelle, who addressed the council on behalf of the Five Points task force, which has been forming a revitalization strategy for the area, said the dog park was “an accumulation of years of planning.”

“We did . . . decide that the property’s best use should be for all citizens,” Rochelle said at the council meeting last week. “A dog park, for our friends that have four legs and wear fur outfits as well, and for many of us who feel that this is also our family.”

In February, council members unanimously voted to purchase for $1.5 million the four-building lot where the Hershee Bar had operated since 1983. There was no discussion about the potential impact on Norfolk’s LGBTQ community.

There are three dog parks within three miles of the bar’s longtime home at 6107 Sewells Point Rd.

Norfolk council member Andria McClellan wrote on Facebook that she was blindsided by the dog park announcement.  “For the record, I don’t support paying $1.5M for a dog park,” McClellan wrote. “I had not heard of these plans before they were presented this week and I don’t agree with this direction at all.”

On the LGBTQ history tour through Norfolk last week, the lost history was on display. Students from Old Dominion University and Virginia Wesleyan University were joined by activists, community members and historians.

They wanted the same thing: to see where their history once stood — even if all that’s left is a vacant building or an empty lot.

“One of those things that’s meaningful to people when we go on our queer history tours is they get to stand in the places where other LGBTQ people stood,” said Cathleen Rhodes, a professor at Old Dominion whose students orchestrated the tour. “We don’t have monuments. We don’t have museums. There really aren’t many places where we can go and stand in our own history.”

When they got to the Hershee Bar, the owners invited them inside. The place was dark and quiet. A heavy stillness hung in the air. The space, usually full of life, felt odd and eerie.

“One of my students said to me at one point, ‘I feel like I’m walking through a funeral,’ ” Rhodes said. “And we were.”

LGBT Activist Nicole Carry Appointed to Norfolk City Council

The world is truly changing in Hampton Roads for LGBT Virginians, especially in the city of Norfolk where my good friend and former fellow HRBOR board member, Nicole Carry has been appointed to hold an interim seat on Norfolk City Council.  Less than 13 years ago I was fired by a large law firm for being gay - Virginia still has zero employment protections for LGBT citizens - and now Pride Fest is the city's second largest festival, HRBOR has grown by leaps and bounds, and now an LGBT activist has been appointed to Norfolk City Council.  Kudos to Nicole!!  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

The City Council chose a Navy veteran and gay-rights activist Thursday to temporarily fill a council seat in the ward that includes the world’s largest naval base.

Nicole Carry, 46, is believed to be the first Navy veteran to serve on Norfolk’s council in recent history, as well as the first gay council member.

She had applied for the seat a month ago but was surprised when she got it after a round of public interviews Thursday afternoon.

“Wow. Awesome!” Carry said when council members called her to tell her she’d beaten out six other people for the post.

Later, she said she was proud of Norfolk for making a progressive choice.

“It wasn’t that long ago I was in the Navy and being witch-hunted,” said Carry, who identifies as lesbian. She served from 1991 to 1997, a time when service members could not be openly gay.

Carry will be sworn in oday and will be on the dais for Tuesday’s regular council meeting. She replaces Andy Protogyrou, who served on the council for six years but had to step down in the middle of a term because he ran unsuccessfully for mayor.

Carry is expected to serve for less than two months and participate in, at most, three meetings. A special election is scheduled for Aug. 23 to let voters choose someone to represent Ward 1 until June 2018. Carry does not plan to run for the seat .

“This would never have happened on the last council,” Smigiel said.  He noted that most applicants admitted they could accomplish little in just a few weeks on the council – but not Carry.

An information-technology consultant who has lived in Norfolk for more than 20 years, Carry has advocated for city government to be more innovative in education and technology.

She hopes to get Norfolk schools to partner with Code Virginia, a group that trains teachers on how to instruct students in computer science and coding.  And she has been pushing the city for about three years to create an information-technology commission that she says would spur technological innovation.

After publicly interviewing all seven candidates over nearly two hours, the council discussed the choices behind closed doors for a few minutes. They then returned to public session and unanimously appointed Carry, the only woman among the seven.

“She just blew it out of the water,” Mayor Kenny Alexander said, calling her a progressive whose IT and military experience and command of issues clearly put her at the top of the list.

It has been truly amazing to see and be a part of the LGBT community going mainstream in this region even as the "godly folk" slowly are losing their power and influence.   

More on Lawlessness in Norfolk - Is Mayor Fraim Paying Any Attention?

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim

Yesterday I wrote a follow up post on the out of control crime wave that is gripping parts of the City of Norfolk, particularly around the Old Dominion University campus near my property.  The mayor and City Council are pouring many millions of dollars into a new hotel development - over the protest of existing hotels - while slashing funding for neighborhood preservation and doing nothing to address the greatly under staffed police force.  I had a lengthy conversation with the head of the Third Patrol of the police force and got a lot of blather about being patient, waiting for the "process to work," etc.   Meanwhile the situation is worsening although the City Attorney's office can still find time to harass small business owners, especially those of Arabic descent.  It's a frightening state of affairs and as the Virginian Pilot reports, the shooting of an 11 year old boy two nights ago was "random."  Yep, thugs and gang members running around with guns and firing off shots at will.  That's why my family members have evacuated to Virginia Beach and why my residence is going up for sale ASAP.   Here are highlights from today's Virginian Pilot article:

An 11-year-old boy who was shot in the foot while walking in a neighborhood Tuesday appears to have been a random target, police said.

The boy was walking on 31st Street near Colley Avenue about 9:20 p.m. when someone in a dark sedan with tinted windows began firing, police spokesman Chris Amos said. The boy began running and felt a sting in his foot, Amos said.

He was treated for a minor bullet injury. Officers recovered shell casings from the street.

Welcome to Mayor Paul Fraim's Norfolk.  As for the perpetrators of the shooting being caught, don't hold your breath.  Forensics confirm where the gunfire that hit my home came from and neither the tenant of the property nor the landlords have met with any consequence.   The city is headed back to the old days where its not safe to be in some neighborhoods even in broad daylight.  Thanks a lot City Council and Mayor Fraim.  Norfolk desperately needs a clean sweep of City Council.

Norfolk, Virginia - A City of Misplaced Priorities

The City of Norfolk, Virginia likes to portray itself as a modern progressive city.  Like so much in Virginia it is a sham facade meant to disguise a city that still operates largely on a "good old boy" system and where some neighborhoods and businesses get preferred treatment while the rest are largely left to fend for themselves and are supposed to be satisfied with whatever scraps are thrown their way bu the self-anointed city fathers.  Worse yet, despite all the studies that correlate gay friendly policies and acceptance to economic growth and attracting the so-called creative class Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim is, in my opinion, a homophobe who views being gay or lesbian as a form of communicable disease.

 Two of the areas given very low priority by Fraim and his cohorts on City Council are (i) neighborhood maintenance and (ii) adequate police protection.   The first phenomenon was looked at  in an article in the Virginian Pilot where Norfolk is slashing its budget for neighborhoods while pledging many millions of taxpayer dollars to a new downtown hotel development.  Here are some article highlights:

Community leaders are upset that the city's proposed spending plan seems to favor new downtown projects over revitalizing struggling neighborhoods.

Norfolk's 2014 budget includes about $2.75 million for specific neighborhood plans, compared with $6 million last year, a change that City Manager Marcus Jones said is justified by a drop in the city's real estate revenue.

But some community leaders say the reduction threatens progress in key growth areas, such as Broad Creek, Fairmount Park, the Southside and Wards Corner, four communities among 20 with plans that outline strategic goals for improving infrastructure, acquiring land and rehabilitating struggling areas.

While the money problems are not new, neighborhood and city leaders say the cuts sting more now that the city has set aside money for other projects, including $4 million for a new Government Center Plaza downtown.

They also point to a decision this year to support a $126 million hotel conference center in downtown. That project will use $89 million in public money, including $16 million that the city has already spent.

As for inadequate and noneffective police protection, the Norfolk police department has been under manned for many years.   But worse yet, protecting taxpayers and their property seems to be a low priority.  How else to explain my experiences over the last three weeks.  In 2005 I bought a 1917 vintage arts and craft style house three blocks from the Old Dominion University campus.  I remodeled the kitchen and bathroom, repainted every surface  of the property, put on a new roof and installed new heating and cooling.  In short, I invested a lot of money as did other residents on my block.  I now live in Hampton with the boyfriend and my youngest daughter and her family live in the Norfolk house.  Where they are being terrorized by self-described gang members in a rental property that adjoins mine property at the rear.    Three weeks ago my house was hit by gun fire (see photo above) that shattered the rear storm door.  My family members have been harassed and intimidated, loud nuisance level music is the norm, etc.  What has been done to correct this situation? NOTHING.

Meanwhile, the police and City Attorney's office have the time to harass a client of mine who owns a restaurant for allegedly violating a city code noise ordinance.  Indeed a threat of criminal prosecution has been leveled.  Perhaps not coincidentally, my client is of Arabic descent.  Yet NOTHING has been done to stop the war zone behind my home despite calls and meetings with police and one meally mouthed message I received from the City Managers office.  

Visitors to Norfolk need to get a strong message - do not venture out of downtown or you may not be safe.  Self-described gang members are allowed to do whatever they wish while law abiding citizens cower in their homes and debate whether they need to go somewhere else for the night in order to be safe.  This is the real story of Norfolk under Mayor Paul Fraim and his gang of do nothing for regular citizens members of City Council.   Meanwhile I am left to ponder: do I sell the house and relocate my family members or do I let it go into foreclosure and drive down neighborhood property values?