A famed Greenwich Village gay bar is struggling to find a new home, getting shunned at every turn by neighbors of the once-liberal bastion.
Rent hovering around $20,000 a month has forced Boots & Saddle to pull up stakes after 40 years on Christopher Street, but neighbors have shot down two proposed new locales — and a third is generating fierce opposition.
“They just don’t want us. They don’t want their bucolic neighborhood interfered with. For some reason, they think they moved into the Amish country,” one bar supporter said. “I don’t know if it’s hypocrisy or bigotry.”
The Western-themed gin joint, known for its nightly drag shows, will come before a committee of Community Board 2 on Tuesday as it asks the body to support its liquor-license application for 47 Seventh Ave. South, a former restaurant at the corner of leafy Morton Street.
The latest proposal mobilized locals, who aim to squash the scheme just as neighbors did when a similar plan emerged last May for a spot on nearby Barrow Street.
Fliers distributed last week near the site blasted the “potential noise, crime and pedestrian and vehicular traffic” the bar could bring.
“It’s totally inappropriate,” sniffed Albert S. Bennett of the Morton Street Block Association. “These blocks form a residential enclave that is very special.
“There is absolutely no room for anything that Boots & Saddle represents in that enclave,” he continued. “It couldn’t be more wrong for this particular location.”
Bar co-owner Robert Ziegler said the new locale would function more like a restaurant — but with drag shows.
“I think people are just scared of the unknown,” he said.