New Jersey Supreme Court affirms LGBTQIA+ people’s right to assembly.
A Modern Era Court Ruling
“The apparent lesbian”
On Thursday May 6, 1965 at 10:30 PM, undercover agents entered Manny’s Den, a bar on Albany Street in New Brunswick. The agents suspected that the owners and staff allowed “apparent homosexuals” to gather publicly, which was against agency regulation at the time. Manny’s Den could have their license suspended or revoked based on the agents’ findings:
Manny’s Den, a holding of One Eleven Wines and Liquors Inc. had their license suspended for a period of 60 days.
“In a girlish manner”
Six agents also surveilled Val’s Bar on New York Avenue in Atlantic City. From July to September 1965, they made five visits to verify that bar staff and owners were allowing “homosexuals” to gather.
According to agent testimony:
The license for Val’s Bar was suspended for 120 days.
“The gay crowd”
It wasn’t the first time Murphy’s Tavern on Mulberry Street in Newark had been surveilled. In 1959, their license was suspended for 60 days due to “apparent homosexual” behavior and hosting a “female impersonator”. Suspicious of immoral behavior, agents visited six times between March and May 1965.
Due to prior violations, the Murphy’s license was revoked.
What agency monitored people in bars?
Why were they looking for “homosexual behavior”?
How did these three bars fight back?
Read on to find out!
The Agency: Morality, Behavior, and Alcohol
Prohibition ended in 1933 and New Jersey created the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, or ABC through legislation, An Act Concerning Alcoholic Beverages, passed December 6, 1933.
This new agency was “to promote temperance and eliminate the racketeer and bootlegger,” meaning that they were to encourage people to drink responsibly and keep criminals out of the businesses that involved alcohol.
With this, the ABC was asked to fill both a both a regulatory and a moral mandate. They were to monitor, investigate, and protect the public from fraudulent practices and other criminal activity. The mandate also granted the ABC a wide degree of social control over businesses that were licensed to serve alcohol. They could determine how these businesses operated, who they could hire, and who they could serve.
Agents: full authority to conduct investigations
Item 4 section D of the Act allows the ABC Commissioner appointment of inspectors and investigators. These are the agents, who in 1965, investigated Manny’s Den, Val’s Bar, and Murphy’s Tavern for allowing “apparent homosexuals” to gather publicly.
“Certainly, I impersonate a lot of stars.”
The ABC prohibited “female impersonators” from performing in any alcohol-serving establishment. In 1941, Acting Commissioner Garrett set a strict minimum charge of a 15 day license suspension for a first time offense when a business was found to allow the presence of “female impersonators.” A repeat of that offense could bring a punishment of a 180 day suspension.
Over time, the definition of “female impersonator” became more and more unclear. There are many examples in ABC’s Bulletins in which bars either lost their license or had them suspended simply because investigators reported that someone who looked masculine was acting in feminine ways.
Bar owners, entertainers, and guests routinely testified that they were not homosexual, only stereotyped as such by ABC investigators. The Commissioner generally rejected these claims if his agents gave detailed descriptions of behavior and appearance he thought was not normal.
“The licensee should be extremely careful”
A long license suspension was very serious. For example, in 1941 James R. McClyment, who owned a bar in Gloucester City, was forced to sell his bar license and could never operate a bar again. One reason was that he hired two unlicensed entertainers from Philadelphia as “female impersonators.”
During the 1950s and 1960s, investigations became more direct in targeting “apparent homosexuals”, meaning people whose appearance and behavior didn’t match what society expected for their gender.
The harsh enforcement of these morality rules by ABC led to a destructive campaign against the LGBTQIA+ community and the bar owners who welcomed them as customers.
“Well behaved homosexuals”
Manny’s, Val’s, and Murphy’s Fight Back
This campaign of punishing licensees who allowed “alleged homosexuals” to gather in their establishments would culminate in a 1967 NJ Supreme Court ruling against the agency which removed the prohibition on “well-behaved homosexuals” using bars.
The Supreme Court case did not exactly end the harassment of LGTBQIA+ people in bars, but it firmly established their right to assemble in public spaces.
Learn more about Justice Jacobs’ ruling:
No Charges of Lewd and Immoral Behavior
The Supreme Court noticed a discrepancy. ABC Rule 5, which prohibits “lewdness” and “immoral activities,” and “foul, filthy, indecent or obscene language or conduct”, was used to justify charges against these three bars. However…
- “When, during the course of cross-examination, one of the division’s investigators was asked whether he had observed any lewdness at Murphy’s Tavern, the prosecuting attorney pointed out that the division had not alleged ‘any immoral activity or lewdness itself’.”
- “In the One Eleven proceeding there was no charge and no substantial evidence that lewd or immoral conduct was permitted at the licensed premises.”
- “Similarly in the proceeding against Val’s Bar there was no charge nor any substantial evidence at the hearing before the director that lewd or immoral conduct was permitted at the licensed premises.”
Stereotypical homosexual behavior doesn’t violate morality and decency standards.
“[ABC] points to the fact that the very term ‘apparent homosexuals’ contemplates effeminate behavioral characteristics…but apparently it concedes, as it must in the light of the times, that such behavioral characteristics without more, would not constitute overt conduct offensive to current standards of morality and decency. It expresses various fears which we have carefully considered but which lack significant support in the records before us or in the available materials on the subject.”
No sufficient proof in evidence of the following:
The division suggests that the presence of apparent homosexuals in so-called “gay” bars may serve to harm the occasional non-homosexual patrons who happen to stray there but it produces nothing to rebut the expert testimony or the published writings to the contrary.
It further suggests that offensive conduct by apparent homosexuals within the licensed premises “may lead to violence” against them by non-homosexuals but this ignores the licensee’s comprehensive capacity and responsibility, at the peril of its license, for precluding offensive conduct and for conducting its establishment in lawful and orderly fashion.
Finally, it points out that it has consistently tried “to increase public respect and confidence in the liquor industry” and suggests that permitting the congregation of apparent homosexuals, even though carefully supervised, will impair such public respect and confidence. But here again it furnishes nothing affirmative in support of its position which appears to disregard the burgeoning movement towards greater tolerance and deeper understanding of the subject.
Justice Jacobs supports right to assembly
“It must be borne in mind that the division has produced nothing to support any need for continuance of its flat prohibition. Nor has it produced anything to indicate that it could not readily prepare and enforce a fair and sensible regulation which, while permitting apparent homosexuals to assemble in and patronize licensed establishments, prohibits overtly indecent conduct and public displays of sexual desires manifestly offensive to currently acceptable standards of propriety.”
“Such a regulation might well be adopted forthwith to the end that future proceedings would rightly be based on specific charges of improper conduct at the licensed premises rather than, as here, upon general charges of mere congregation which we deem to be unreasonable and legally unsupportable.“
“The discipline imposed in the three cases before us must be set aside, without prejudice, however, to any new charges which the division may prefer against the licensees, or any of them, clearly describing the individual acts alleged to be violative of the provisions in Rule 5 aimed at lewd and immoral conduct within the licensed premises.”
Righting Historical Wrongs
On 29 June 2021, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal vacated past ABC decisions resulting in penalties against bar owners who allowed “apparent homosexuals” to congregate.
Look at the map to your left showing 150 locations in New Jersey, including:
- Licensees included in the Attorney General’s directive
- Unpardoned locations
- Dismissed charges locations
- Post 1967 lewdness accusations against licensees
- Appeals and court challenges to decisions
Bar goers in 1930s-1960s New Jersey showed bravery by being openly LGBTQIA+ in public, risking arrest based on appearance or mannerisms alone. ABC licensees sometimes lost their livelihoods by providing space to these patrons.
While being LGBTQIA+ and gender nonconforming in public can still present challenges, New Jersey is a safer place to live and thrive.
Questions for Discussion:
- What challenges have you seen to our right to assembly in 2026?
- How did this case connect to the national struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights?
- Look at the interactive map. What bars were in your area?
Share your thoughts with us on New Jersey history.
Continue your journey, below, into New Jersey state history
