Fave Los Angeles Lesbian Bar The Normandie Room Goes Under

The Normandie Room, one of West Hollywood’s landmark lesbian bars, has become the latest victim of the recession and will close its doors for good “around the end of July, beginning of August,” owner Jason Shokrian said.

Shokrian, who is straight, opened the bar Oct. 28, 1993, and said he initially didn’t plan for The Norm, as it is commonly referred to by regulars, to be a lesbian bar.

“I opened it with the mindset that everyone be treated equally, no preferential treatment due to gender or sexual orientation,” he said. “Due to the fact that women were not treated very well at other establishments at the time (in West Hollywood) they started to gravitate here.”

The Norm joins a list of smaller businesses to close their doors in the region in the past few years including novelty store Don’t Panic, coffeehouses Swing Café and Little Frida’s as well as LGBT bookstore A Different Light, which shuttered this year.

Owner Bill Barker said in February that two factors led to the bookstore’s demise: a major construction project renovating Santa Monica Boulevard that lasted nearly two years and “killed foot traffic”; and the fire that burned down neighboring bar Mickey’s in August 2007. And then, in a parallel to The Norm, the economic recession was the last straw.

Shokrian said he “cannot give (the bar) the attention that it needs to thrive and in many different ways, She — yes, it’s always been a ‘She’ — is telling me it is time to move on.

“It has been a struggle since the end of last year and business never picked up enough to justify my continuing to do this,” he added. “I have shed many a tear and will continue to do so long after I have handed the keys to the new owners.”

While no final date is set for the bar’s last bash, he said it will be around month’s end or early August.

Shokrian said a place called Gym, a boy-oriented sports bar, “being opened by two very nice guys” will take over the location. “At the very least I had to like who was taking over,” he added.

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“The Normandie Room name leaves with me, so who knows, perhaps this is simply an opportunity to find a better location and a better situation to start The Norm over again,” Shokrian said. “Finding ‘bar’ spaces is a difficult task, but I am looking and am entertaining the possibility of expanding into food, if no traditional ‘bar’ space presents itself.”

Shokrian, who is married and considers himself a “complete social misfit,” loves being in the service industry. “The first time I set foot in a restaurant as an employee was the first time that work was actually fun,” he said. “I honestly and truly love to serve people and helping someone have a better night is extremely gratifying for me.”

The owner/bartender tips his hat to those who have mixed the drinks at The Norm over the years and the important role they have provided. “I have always held that it is the content of one’s character that defines who we are,” he said. “If one looks at the people who have worked behind the bar, they are the embodiment of this mindset. … Thus the motto of ‘No homophobes, no heterophobes, no a**holes’ embodied exactly that point.”

Glenda Pettijohn, a regular at The Norm and a former employee at Swing Café, said she’d miss the bar and the role that it served in West Hollywood.

“What sucks about The Norm closing is there is now no local bar just to hang out at,” she said. “All we have are clubs at night, and the expensive Abbey.”

Pettijohn said she remembers going to Swing Café, an “old-school coffeehouse with a pool table, old chairs from Goodwill and big couches” that closed in 2000, and seeing lesbian singer/songwriter Melissa Ferrick perform there every week.

With the emergence of multiple Starbucks stores and a Coffee Bean, it became harder for the independent coffee houses like Swing and Frida’s to survive, and both vanished from the community.

Frida’s, which was on the “Ellen” sitcom and was the location of the invitation-only viewing party for the landmark episode when DeGeneres came out on broadcast TV, always featured art from those in the community and had a regular calendar of live performances that ranged from comedy to acoustic music from musicians like Ferrick, who played there in 1996.

Shokrian, meanwhile, remembers serving drinks to k.d. lang, Tiffani Thiessen and Martina Navratilova (“the only time I was starstruck”) and when his childhood crush walked through the door: Charlene Tilton.

As for what’s next, Shokrian won’t know until he leaves the bar for the last time.

“I’m still enjoying all of the memories that are flooding through my mind, my heart and my soul,” he said. “I thank each and everyone one of you for having given me this opportunity to serve you; I hope I kept up my end of the bargain.”