Dave's V.I.P.
(c) Jeffery Auer - 2009
Dave's VIP was the center of gay life in Reno from the mid-sixties until the mid-seventies. The owner, Dave, ran a very popular baths called Dave's Baths at 100 Broadway in San Francisco. In addition to this he owned bathhouses in San Diego and Seattle as well as an early gay resort in Palm Springs called Dave's Villa Caprice. He was a member of the Tavern Guild of San Francisco, an early gay business organization that came together to fight discrimination.
Dave's Westside Motel was a twenty room hotel located at 3001 W. 4th Street. It had a pool and by the seventies a dry sauna. The motel opened in 1965. Dave's V.I.P. Club opened behind the motel as a member's only gay bar that same year. By 1966 it was open to the general public.
September 15, 1970 the Tavern Guild held its annual meeting at the club. By the mid-eighties the club was bought out and turned into the dance club Visions. The motel was turned into a private apartment complex. The space later on became the dance club Reflections which closed in March 2009. Up until that point it was the oldest continually operating gay bar in Reno.
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