| Puerto Vallarta Leaders Start New Vallarta Gay+ Community Center Ed Walsh - Bay Area Reporter | |
| go to original February 21, 2024 |
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Casa Cupula owner Don Pickens has agreed to help lead the new Vallarta Gay+ Community Center in Puerto Vallarta. (Ed Walsh/BAR)
Update: More Than $1.3 Million Pesos Raised for New Vallarta Gay+ Community Center at First Fundraiser (Out and About PV)
Puerto Vallarta gay business leaders are establishing a new LGBTQ program named Gay+ Community Center. It replaces SETAC, the Mexican resort city's LGBTQ center that effectively closed in December amid financial troubles and allegations of mismanagement.
Don Pickens, a former San Franciscan and owner of the upscale LGBTQ boutique hotel Casa Cupula, agreed to help lead the new organization that will take over the essential health services provided by SETAC. The old center focused on health and wellness and ran the city's PrEP program.
"With teeth tightly clenched, I have agreed to lend my name to the paperwork as legal representative and board president of the new Vallarta Gay+ Community Center, along with an amazing collection of movers and shakers," Pickens wrote in a Facebook post on February 14.
Pickens noted he is working with support from Jet De La Isla, owner of Jet's Gay Youth Hostel and Jet's Private Boat Tours; Javier Jimenez, Vallarta Pride president and owner of Mr. Flamingo, Industry, Wet, and La Margarita; Mike Owens, owner of Studs Bear & Leather Bar, who will serve as the organization's secretary; and Mikel Joseph Alvarez, owner of Thrive IV and MedSpa, who will be the center's treasurer. The organization's executive director is Realtor Fer Bolanos Cruz.
For now, the new center is operating in a donated space out of Thrive IV and MedSpa, in the gay-popular Zona Romantica neighborhood, just south of downtown Puerto Vallarta. It is on Basilio Badillo Street, just two blocks from the gayest intersection in the city where Mr. Flamingo, CC Slaughters, and Paco's Ranch are located.
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