Many bar owners on Arenas are now cautiously optimistic that there’s an end in sight. The bar's owner could not be reached for comment. Despite more than a year of on-and-off closures and fluctuating health mandates, at least six of the seven bars on Arenas Road are open again. The only question mark is Stacy's Palm Springs, which has been open intermittently, but appears to have been closed for the last few weeks. Palm Springs has long been one of the most popular LGBTQ destinations in the country.
“It’s like, ‘My god, you're still alive.’” “Some people we haven’t seen for about a year and a half,” said 57-year-old Tony Lawrence, sitting with his partner and two friends outside Quadz bar. Masks, occupancy limits and social distancing aside, it could be any pre-pandemic Friday night on Arenas Road, an entire block lined with gay bars and businesses in downtown Palm Springs. Up the street, a server at Hunters offers up a tray of neon Jello shots to customers sitting on the patio. Outside, a group of women in all pink and matching cowboy hats arrive on the back of a bar bike.
Bartenders at Chill Bar are slinging drinks - a vodka soda here, a couple “margarita martinis” there - beneath two glittering, life-size mannequins suspended from the ceiling.
