The city’s gay bars have fared surprisingly well during the pandemic. It would eventually become the 19-room luxury LGBTQ resort Casa Cupula, which routinely ranks near the top of “best of” lists of hotels in the city. It started with just five rooms but expanded through the years - adding a restaurant, gym, pools and a jacuzzi. Pickens bought it and eventually started a bed-and-breakfast.
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The gay couple who had owned the home were killed in the 2000 Alaska Airlines crash and the house was for sale. While there, Pickens saw a large home on a hillside near his condo. “I decided to go down to Puerto Vallarta to lick my wounds and think about what’s next,” Pickens told SFGATE. Among them is Don Pickens, a former San Francisco tech industry worker who celebrated his 40th birthday in Puerto Vallarta in 2002 after the dot-com crash. Ruiz’s legacy lives onĪfter Ruiz’s death, other LGBTQ residents took up where he left off.
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Ruiz was laid to rest in San Juanito de Escobedo, a small town in Jalisco about a four-hour drive from Puerto Vallarta. The center, which now has three locations, is working to build a memorial to Ruiz on the city’s pedestrian walkway, directly in front of Francisca Rodriguez Street’s landmark public pier, according to the center’s director, Paco Arjona. Staffers at SETAC, a nonprofit that also serves as Puerto Vallarta’s LGBTQ community center. The organization runs support groups, offers testing for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, and recently launched a PrEP program to prevent HIV with the drug Truvada. SETAC stands for Solidaridad Ed Thomas Asociación Civil and is named for former Bostonian Ed Thomas, who founded the organization after he retired to Puerto Vallarta. Ruiz’s HIV/AIDS support work is now being done by SETAC, a nonprofit that also serves as Puerto Vallarta’s LGBTQ community center. He was a longtime HIV/AIDS survivor but had battled cancer in recent years. Sadly, Ruiz died in 2016 at 62 years old. An eagle nested nearby and Paco would call the bird, which would swoop down and eat pieces of meat off his hand. He caught fresh fish and cooked it for guests in what was hands-down the best meal I had in Puerto Vallarta. I met Paco for the first time there around 18 years ago. It was an escape from the crowds and vendors along the public waterfront. Paco's Paradise was popular for day trippers who came for its food and drink and private clothing-optional beach. In addition to his nightclub, Ruiz ran a hotel and “Paco’s Paradise” - a private beach and bed-and-breakfast that was open to day visitors - and started the first organization in the city designed to support people with HIV/AIDS. Ruiz eventually moved his bar a couple of blocks away in another part of an area south of downtown known as Zona Romantica, a neighborhood that now has more than two dozen gay bars, a handful of LGBT hotels and three gay-focused cruises departing from the city’s public beach, Playa de los Muertos. The arrest, and subsequent release, of Paco Ruiz would become Puerto Vallarta’s Stonewall moment and eventually lead to the city becoming the country’s most popular LGBTQ beach destination. From that point on, the city’s police were less hostile to the gay community. The television program embarrassed local leaders, who felt like they’d been made to look unsophisticated and bigoted by the media power structure based in Mexico City, the country’s capital. Canun heard about the incident at Paco Paco and interviewed Ruiz.
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Coincidentally, a national TV personality, Nino Canun, was in Puerto Vallarta at the time, taping his talk show. The police left the club but returned the same night to arrest Ruiz for disorderly conduct. Sometime in 1991 or 1992, when police officers spotted two lesbians kissing at Paco Paco, the club owner refused to pay the bribe they demanded. But police and regulators often targeted gay-owned businesses for shakedowns because, without political connections or meaningful support in the broader local community, they were vulnerable. At the time, Jalisco didn’t have formal laws against homosexuality. When Ruiz opened his club, it was one of only three gay bars in the city.