But because it was a local rather than state authority, about a half dozen bathhouses reopened shortly to challenge the regulation. That's because the San Francisco Department of Public Health issued an order closing the baths in October 1984 at the height of AIDS panic in the city, claiming they were a public nuisance facilitating multiple unsafe sexual contacts.
Ironically, the same city that churns out so much gay porn and supports a number of commercial sex clubs has no gay public bathhouses.
