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GAY SAN DIEGO August 12–25, 2011
FROM PAGE 1 ALAMO
a one-year membership was $100 with family memberships offered at $15 per month or $150 per year. Now the club offers a variety
of memberships and sponsor- ships that are tax-deductible. Indi- viduals can pay $20 per month or $200 annually; for seniors it’s $12
and $144. A Friend of Live and Let Live can make a one-time pledge anytime in any amount. Business and corporate sponsors partici- pate at the silver level of $500, gold at $1,000-$1,500 and platinum benefactors at more than $1,500. Meeting rents come in the
form of what is known in the 12- Step recovery program as the 7th Tradition, which paraphrased states that each group that holds a meeting at the club is fully self-
NEWS
supporting by its own contribu- tions. To this end, the club gets 75 percent of what is collected at each meeting. Other locations charge rent by the meeting or by the month while some simply ask for a donation. “Our primary backbone is
our members and the member benefits are very thin compared to the benefit to the community and to the people who come to the meetings in general, but the spine of this club is the membership because the meeting rents alone wouldn’t support it,” Frank said. “From the beginning that membership was absolutely es- sential,” he added. “The mem- bers probably don’t use the club; the members join to give back. It’s their way of demonstrating their gratitude for what they’ve been given, and we see that month after month. When you look at the dues paid, it’s very moving to see how committed people are that we don’t always see using the rooms, but they wanted to be here. They feel it’s important to have a gay-identified recovery center in San Diego and that’s why they continue.” That gay-identified recovery
wasn’t always welcome by the 12- Step meetings in San Diego. “That story of the early days
how the (A.A.) San Diego Central Office wouldn’t list the gay meet- ings initially, it was a group of gay and lesbian alcoholics that had trouble in some of the mainstream meetings. They didn’t want to hear about our relationships or sex issues,” Frank recalled. “It was about half-a-dozen to
a dozen of them got together and found a place to rent and made a list of what meetings they thought they could attract and opened
the club,” he said of the Fourth and University space just south of what is now American Appar- el. “They supported themselves largely through memberships and meeting rents. They didn’t get all the meetings they wanted; some meetings didn’t want to be in a gay-identified space. They ran bin- go for a number of the early years (before bingo was regulated) that really helped financially. “The club moved to its current
location in 1993,” he said, “but it was at the first location for the first 10 years.” The Alano Club board hopes
its next move is to a long-term space with amazingly reasonable rent or that the dream of building ownership comes to fruition. “We’d like to be more financial-
ly solvent with more of a prudent reserve,” said Frank, “because we still have our aspiration for our own space. The building fund is a 28-year-long aspiration.” “Our rent has doubled and
rent is our biggest liability right now in regards to our operational costs,” Patrick said. “We’re trying to get out from
under the burden of that, looking for a building of our own that we can really call the LGBT commu- nity (recovery) building,” he said. “In that regard it’s a monumental thing for us because that’s who we primarily service. That’s our goal. When you have ownership of such a thing, the pride and the care is increased tenfold than when you are renting from a nonentity and it becomes a partnership with the community because it says ‘it’s ours.’ “We’re not giving up hope
that one day we will have that in our hands,” Patrick said. “It will increase the community service that we provide, and that’s our main mission – to provide a safe environment for those who are seeking meetings for their 12-Step program, whatever that 12-Step program is.” LLLAC is at 1730 Monroe St.
in University Heights. The club is open every day of the year, Mon- day through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 8:30 a.m. To learn more, visit
lllac.org.t
FROM PAGE 1 FESTIVAL
Next,” and “Wish Makers of West Hollywood.” The Two Sundance favorites are “Cir- cumstance” and “Gun Hill Road,” and international films being screened hail from Cana- da, UK, Iran, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy and Taiwan. The fest’s special honoree
is filmmaker Randal Kleiser (“Grease,” “Blue Lagoon,” and “Big Top Pee Wee”) who will present the 15th anniversary screening of his film “It’s My Party.”
“The mission of FilmOut
San Diego is to enlighten, edu- cate and entertain the commu- nities of San Diego County and beyond through the exhibition of LGBT-themed films,” said Michael McQuiggan, Film- Out’s festival programmer who monitors LGBT film festivals worldwide to bring the best offerings home. “San Diego seeks to recognize, promote, celebrate and support the im- portant diverse artistic con- tributions LGBT filmmakers make to our community.” McQuiggan said filmmak-
ers are gravitating to San Di- ego’s LGBT fest because of its superb organization led by director Kaleb James, its ad- visory board and the 200-plus volunteers who make the festi- val happen each year. “We have great opening
and closing parties with doz- ens of filmmakers/cast at- tending, Q&A’s, and excellent sponsors/social media/press,” said McQuiggan. “Filmmak- ers seek us out now, especially over the past few years, to get their films shown.” There are all sorts of
themes in the film selected for this year’s festival. “This year we had over 300 submissions,” noted McQuig- gan. “The themes seemed to gravitate toward romantic comedy and social awareness,
see Festival, pg 4
gay-sd.com
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