Seven businesses, including the San Francisco Bay Times, were unanimously approved by the San Francisco Small Business Commission on April 26 for the Legacy Business Registry. The Registry recognizes longstanding, community-serving businesses as valuable assets to the city. The following six businesses, with owners’ names mentioned, are the others newly added:
Fanta Cleaners Inc.
Fanta Cleaners Admin
Young Park
https://fantacleaners.com/
Finnegans Wake
General Business Email
Dan Serot
Melinda (Lindy) Frenkel
https://www.finneganssf.com/
Flowercraft
Lydia Patubo
https://www.flowercraftgc.com/
Lyon-Martin Health Services
J.M. Jaffe
https://tinyurl.com/3b3umzjc
Old Ship Saloon
Eric Passetti
https://www.theoldshipsf.com/
Yankee Clipper Travel
Kirk Dalrymple
http://www.yankeeclippertravel.com/
Businesses with Strong LGBT Connections
In addition to the San Francisco Bay Times, three of the businesses, in particular, are known for their history of service to the LGBTQ community.
Finnegans Wake used to be Maud’s, the longest-running lesbian bar in the U.S. The iconic establishment was opened in 1966 by Rikki Streicher, when lesbians like Rikki and other members of our community faced overwhelming threats. Maud’s flourished throughout the 1970s and 1980s, though, enjoying an international reputation as a meeting place for lesbians and their friends, only to be shut down in 1989 as a result of the community’s shifting priorities. The present Finnegans Wake team values this past and for years the bar was the site of the annual Maud’s Reunion in June.
Lyon-Martin Health Services was founded in 1979 by then UCSF OB/GYN Residents Sherron Mills, Patricia Robertson, and Alana Schilling. They shared a desire to establish a free-standing clinic to give lesbians in the San Francisco Bay Area access to nonjudgmental, affordable health care.
The clinic soon became a model for culturally sensitive community-based health care. It was named for Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, two women whose lives and work were intertwined with their enduring dedication to social justice. In 1990, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California awarded the couple with its highest honor, the Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award.
Now Lyon-Martin Health Services and the Women’s Community Clinic provide primary medical care, sexual and reproductive health care, and mental health services for women, gender non-conforming people, and transgender people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. They treat patients regardless of ability to pay and assist them with enrollment into a variety of health coverage programs.
Yankee Clipper Travel is a neighbor! Based in the Castro at 4115 19th Street, this business has been providing quality leisure travel planning for more than 50 years. It was founded by James Boin, who also served as Vice President of the International Gay Travel Association. Since 1997, Yankee Clipper Travel has been owned and operated by Kirk Dalrymple.
Yankee Clipper Travel is staffed by people, not unlike Kirk, who love to travel and have been doing so for many years. They have explored destinations across the globe and have a wide range of experience and knowledge to share with fellow travelers.
Bay Times in 1978
As for our own past, the first issue of the San Francisco Bay Times was published on May 1, 1978. Tom Ammiano was featured on the cover and Associate Editor Roland Schembari, General Manager Bill Hartman, and News Editor Randy Alfred were at the helm, among others. Contributors included the aforementioned Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, as well as Cleve Jones and other dedicated activists, journalists, and more.
In an opinion piece entitled “Communities and Communications,” the Bay Times staff vowed, in part, to “provide reliable, authoritative news, covering the obvious and uncovering the less-than-obvious stories affecting lesbians and gay men. We will publish every two weeks. our crisply written basic news will be supplemented with lively features, reviews, photos, and graphics.”
They concluded, “The Bay Times will be a forum for dialogue. News coverage will report on inter-group relations, and editorial comment will forge links between our movements and those of racial minorities, feminists, and rank-and-file labor, environmentalists, the disabled, the old, the young, and the poor.”
Bay Times Now
While so much has changed since that first issue was published, the emphasis on equality, intersectionality, and coverage addressing all groups within our growing LGBTQ community remains. As mentioned on the masthead page of each issue, the Bay Times was among the first newspapers in the world to be jointly and equally produced by lesbians and gay men, so building community has been a consistent goal of the paper.
The masthead gets to the heart of the paper now, sharing the names of the columnists, designers, and other team members who make the Bay Times possible. The paper’s longevity also is due to you, our readers. Many of you have been reading and following the paper from the very beginning.
Whether you have been reading the Bay Times since the 1970s, or recently discovered us, we are grateful for your support. With our future efforts we hope to continue to honor the LGBTQ community and our history, in addition now to striving for the best qualities exemplified by other small businesses that have earned placement on the Legacy Business Registry.
https://www.legacybusiness.org/registry
Published on May 6, 2021
