Landlord tries to boot gay bar from venue. But the bar owners are fighting back.

The gay proprietors of a popular Oakland venue have been told they’re in violation of their lease over the bar’s regular programming of karaoke and trivia nights, drag brunches, and cabaret shows.

Port Bar owners Sean Sullivan and Richard Fuentes say they’ve been ordered to cease any activity in the venue beyond “serving wine, beer, and spirits” and to vacate the property in 2024, years ahead of their lease term.

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“I never agreed to the use of the premises as an entertainment facility with dancing parties and entertainment presentations indoors and outdoors,” landlord Phil Leong told San Francisco Business Times.

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Leong alleges the bar is “providing strip shows” and “allowing dancers to block traffic” while lacking proper insurance for the activities he calls unauthorized.

The Port Bar owners call Leong’s allegations “a pack of lies,” and their allies are alleging discrimination.

Sullivan and Fuentes have rallied an Oakland councilmember, Carroll Fife, and the Alameda County Democratic Party to their cause, with the county Democrats coming hard at Leong.

The organization issued a nonbinding resolution in September to stop the bar’s eviction, demanding an investigation of Leong’s engineering firm RSE Corp., which has earned publicly-funded contracts with Bay Area transit providers Caltrain and BART.  

The resolution also asserts Leong has “not operated in good faith” with the property he owns next door to Port Bar, which the landlord has kept vacant for seven years.

That space may be shaping up to be Leong’s own karaoke bar.

Port Bar’s Sullivan has noticed construction next door has picked up in recent months, and when a group of curious bar patrons recently asked workers at the site what was on the way, they replied, “A karaoke bar.”

Questioned about whether his new bar would compete with Port Bar’s current programming, Leong said it was “my right to do it.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to be doing with it, but I’m just trying to modify it,” he claimed.

Leong has said he has no issue with LGBTQ+ people or events in general but argued hosting them at Port Bar is in violation of their lease and created safety hazards in the roughly 2,000-square-foot venue.

He added later, “Karaoke activity inside a bar in any event cannot be equated with the programming of the Port Bar.”

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