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| 4737 Geary Blvd. today |
Location: 4737 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, California, USA
Opened: 1972
Closed: ?
I first stumbled upon Peg's Place in this newspaper article from 1979. Here we see how vulnerable lesbian bars are--and women's spaces in general--to male violence and violation.
SAN FRANCISCO -- On the night of March 31, about 15 young men, most of them rather burly and rather drunk, brought their bachelor party to Peg's Place, a lesbian bar in the city's Richmond section. As they stood on the sidewalk outside Peg's, some of them were overheard talking about "getting the dykes."
Several employees of the bar, all of them women, met the men at the door and asked them to go away. An argument ensued, and one of the men started beating one of the women in the chest. The women threatened to call the cops.
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| Ad for Peg's Place |
"We're the cops," said the man doing the beating, "and we'll do as we damn please."
The men, in fact, were off-duty members of the vice squad, of the San Francisco Police Department. One of them would be convicted of battery for his behavior that night. He would be sentenced to three years probation, fined $1000 and called a "bully" by the judge.
Other than the account above, I haven't found much else about Peg's Place, except other briefer references to the same incident or vaguely fond recollections at various blogs and such.
Most recently, the location has hosted a Chinese restaurant called Dong Bei Mama.
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| San Francisco, June 24, 1979 |
Peg's was a slightly older and more suburban crowd than other bars, women who owned businesses and homes, wearing 70's polyester pantsuits. Really nice big pool table...Kitty the ex women's national collegiate champion played there. I remember the incident you described. And I remember tending bar one afternoon with one or two female customers when a large man in a monster halloween mask came in, reached across the bar, grabbed me and began ranting about this and that, crazy out of his mind. That time the police were on our side..they came and took him away.
ReplyDeleteThe lesbian bars in the 1970's and early 80's were homes away from home..Peg's, Amelia's, Maud's, Scott's ..all had softball teams and friendly rivalry between them, each bar with a distinct personality, a different way of dressing. I tended bar at all of them at one time or another.
Not to be forgotten from Peg's Place: Peg the owner, who managed to be tough and gracious at the same time, Pam the Las Vegas blonde bombshell cocktail waitress with a heart of gold and her butch girlfriend Rusty, and Linda from the Phillipines who bought the bar from Peg.
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