New York could finally lift a decades-old ban that shuttered the city's gay bathhouses and other adult establishments during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
New York lawmakers have introduced legislation that would repeal the state's existing prohibitions on adult saunas and pave the way for licensing and operating these spaces.
State health regulations adopted in 1985 prohibited adult saunas. New York City relied on those regulations to close the city's gay bathhouses the following year during the AIDS epidemic.
Despite opposition from some LGBTQ+ advocates and business owners, then-Mayor Ed Koch directed city health inspectors, including some working undercover, to enforce the new regulations.
Supporters said declining HIV infection rates, along with medical advances including widespread HIV testing and PrEP, a medication that helps prevent HIV transmission, have renewed calls to repeal the decades-old restrictions.
New York could soon follow Minneapolis, which reversed its own 38-year ban on bathhouses earlier this year, according to state Sen. Erik Bottcher.
“That provision was put into effect at the height of AIDS panic in 1985 and those kind of emergency measures are not supposed to become permanent public health policy,” Bottcher said. “The landscape around HIV and AIDS science has changed. Treatment has changed. Prevention has changed. Our laws need to change, too.”
Bottcher and Assemblymember Tony Simone's bill, dubbed the Public Health Modernization Act, would establish a licensing framework for adult saunas. Supporters, including Callen-Lorde's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, said regulated facilities could also expand opportunities for HIV prevention and public health outreach.
“My own work in these venues has shown that they can also be powerful environments for health outreach and prevention,” Daskalakis said. “By bringing people together rather than pushing them into less visible settings, we create opportunities to build trust and deliver services that improve health outcomes.”
New HIV diagnoses have decreased more than 70% since 2001, though the city reported 1,791 new diagnoses in 2024. Gothamist previously reported that health experts have linked recent increases among some populations to factors such as housing instability and barriers to healthcare.
