Editor,
If you have L.G.B.T. friends, remind them that warm weather on Memorial Day weekend, May 27-30 will see crowds at one major attraction that continues to make our town unique, the internationally gay beach, West Street in South Laguna.
A huge expanse of sand, volleyball courts, portable restrooms and a lifeguard assigned to the beach in the summer make this a beautiful destination.
The L.G.B.T. community spends billions on travel. Business owners in Laguna should encourage gays to spend it here. West Street beach is minutes from a nine-hole golf course, wonderful hotel rooms, a huge pool and patio dining in Aliso Canyon, Laguna’s “little Yosemite.”
Trolleys run year round on weekends and every day in the summer to a friendly gay bar and cabaret, coffee house, the best bakery in town on the alley and a intimate beach at Mountain Avenue.
In the old days, Laguna had a popular gay beach south of the main beach guard tower, until Main Beach Park was being built when year long construction somehow sent L.B.G.T. people south to the beach below Camels Point, dubbed West Street. Our historic gay beach was famous for summer crowds and silver-service picnics on the sand and the nearby big public bar, Dante’s, which on holidays ordered 500 cases of Bud before draft became popular.
After gays moved south, West Street had an un-official mayor and a 10-watt radio station that transmitted a pre-recorded program on weekends the crowds could pickup on their radios. Launch the summer Memorial Day weekend. West Street beach is alive and well.
Roger Carter, Laguna Beach
