Dave's V.I.P.
(c) Jeffery Auer - 2009
Dave's V.I.P. was the center of gay life in Reno from the mid-sixties until the early eighties. Dave and his partner Rex Allen ran a very successful chain of baths and gay motels on the West Coast. One of the most famous was a very popular baths called Dave's Baths at 100 Broadway in San Francisco. In addition to this they owned bathhouses in San Diego and Seattle as well as an early gay resort in Palm Springs called Dave's Villa Caprice. They were 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 in Reno, Nevada. It had a pool and by the seventies a dry sauna. The motel had been open since 1950 but didn't become gay until 1965. Dave's V.I.P. Club opened behind the motel as a member's only gay bar in February, 1966.
On 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 January 2009. Up until that point it was the oldest continually operating gay bar in Reno.
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