Word: gay
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Families with children, the mainstay of most communities, are a distinct minority in West Hollywood, constituting only 5% of the populace. The local International House of Pancakes does far more business during Halloween and the Gay Pride Parade in June than on Mother's Day. "In West Hollywood we don't have children's specialty shops or McDonald's with a playground," says Ruth Abrams, 36, whose daughter...
...dwellers with children, play space is at a premium. A dozen mothers, members of the West Hollywood Munchkins Play Group, convene three days a week in cramped West Hollywood Park. They unlock a wooden shed, pass out toys and warily eye the winos by the shuffleboard court and the gay men seeking casual sex around the shrubs and public toilet. "We complain to the police, and they arrest these perverts in the toilet," Abrams says. "Look, I don't care what they do, but I don't want it in front of my kid. We want a separate children...
While the wealthy shop and play in West Hollywood, they do not run it, a point made forcefully during last year's campaign to incorporate. While the gay-rights issue got most of the ink in the press, the main push for cityhood came from tenants demanding rent control. While only 25% to 35% of West Hollywood's residents are homosexual, 85% are renters. Says Ron Stone, 38, a former U.S. Senate aide and father of the cityhood campaign: "Without a coalition of renters and gays, we would not have a city today...
...nobody is going to risk his life savings to build housing in a city where the council is as socialistic and kooky as this one." Parks notes that one council member, Valerie Terrigno, 32, has been indicted on federal embezzlement charges. Another, Stephen Schulte, 39, has posed for a gay magazine, a third, Mayor John Heilman, 28, sprayed a blue stripe in his hair and dressed in a flowing white robe for a political gala. On top of all that, the whole council attended a $4,000 group "leadership"-therapy session with a psychiatrist. "This is not the sort...
...Symbolically, it's of national importance that the majority of the city council can be gay and lesbian and get elected by nongay voters, but gay rights is only part of what we're about," says Mayor Heilman. "Running a city is all about police protection and potholes and parking." As West Hollywood completes its first tumultuous year, even skeptical landlords are showing acceptance of city hall: most have painted over their Commie red facades...