The Night Cops Beat Up Lesbians at Peg’s Place
Peg’s Place was established in the 1950s as a safe haven for lesbians, opening up at 4737 Geary Boulevard. The cozy little space had Norman-style stone arches, an open fireplace, and a pool table. As the management wanted to cater to more classy clientele, the dress code strictly prohibited blue jeans. Dancing was restricted to a room where the disc jockey watched the crowd through one-way glass to make sure the dancers didn’t touch each other. If the police caught wind of intimate dancing or public displays of affection between women taking place on the premises, a raid would ensue and the bar would lose its license.
Over the 1960s and 1970s, the bar would relax its rules as police monitoring and harassment of the LGBTQ community began to taper off, particularly after the infamous riot at the Compton’s Cafeteria location at 101 Turk Street in August 1966. However, tensions lingered between the police and the LGBTQ community.
On 31 March 1979, a group of about fifteen drunken, burly men, some of whom were off-duty members of the SFPD vice squad, were on a bar crawl in the Richmond District as part of a bachelor party for their friend Bernard Shaw. Shaw was engaged to Patty Hearst, who had only recently been released from prison after serving time for her role in a bank robbery led by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist group. When they arrived at Peg’s Place, several women who worked there came to the door and refused them entry because they were already drunk and many of them were carrying beer in violation of open container laws.
Immediately, an argument ensued, and rapidly escalated to physical violence. One of the men began beating one of the employees in the chest. As the other women on shift threatened to call the police, the man doing the beating snapped back, “We are the cops, and we’ll do as we damn well please.”
The other men yelled, “Let’s get the dykes,” jostled their way into the bar, and began attacking the staff. The doorwoman was gripped in a chokehold, and Alene Levine, tending that night, was beaten so severely with a pool cue that she would spend ten days in the hospital with injuries to her skull. According to the victims of the assault, the uniformed police officers who arrived on the scene refused to perform sobriety tests or take witness statements, but instead brought the victims to the station and questioned them for three hours.
Then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein was appalled by the incident and advised the district attorney to make a top priority out of securing convictions. Linda Symaco, who owned Peg’s Place at the time, also was determined to pursue justice. Braving obscene phone calls and harassment, she, along with Arlene Levine and Kathryn Miller, a customer who was present during the attack, filed a successful civil suit against three of the troublemakers, the City and its police department, retaining Thomas Steel as their attorney.
That November, there was a citywide proposition to abolish the vice squad and all anti-vice ordinances. Although the measure only received about a third of the vote and did not pass, the incident at Peg’s Place received media coverage nationwide. Officer Daniel Marr and another of his colleagues were both convicted of disturbing the peace. Marr was also convicted of battery. Though he served no jail time, he was given three years’ probation, a $1,000 fine and a reprimand from the judge for being a bully.
Though Peg’s Place continued to be a popular bar, it ultimately closed in 1988. The 1979 assault that took place there was held up as an example of the escalating tension between the gay community and the San Francisco Police Department. In less than two months, the conflict would escalate to a deadly extent, with more violence to follow.
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