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A new club in Torremolinos, the historic cradle of freedom for the LGBT community in Europe, has banned "maricones" (a derogatory word for homosexuals) from entering. It is a club advertised as "luxury" and "Moroccan", located in Calle Cruz, in the centre of the Costa del Sol town. It is due to open on 18 January.
In its rules, the Casa Fatima club , announced that it will immediately expel those who violate its homophobic code of conduct. It also bans fights, drug use, and the wearing of caps and flip-flops. These regulations has been published by the club itself on its social media accounts, where it details that the first event will be called 'Superstar Night', with an entrance cost of twenty euros per ticket.
The reaction of the town's mayor, Margarita del Cid, has not been long in coming. The mayor warned that the town hall "will not tolerate this type of attitude", adding we will do "everything in our power to prohibit any activity of a club that encourages this regrettable attitude". Del Cid said that "hatred and homophobia have no place here" and she has sent a blunt message to those responsible for the venue: "The only ones who are not welcome are them." This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to contact those in charge of the club.
En Torremolinos no vamos a consentir estas actitudes. El odio y la homofobia no tienen cabida aquí y vamos a hacer todo lo que esté en nuestra mano para prohibir este evento y cualquier actividad de un club que fomente esta lamentable actitud. Los únicos que sobran son ellos. pic.twitter.com/YGXOiBWKXm
— Marga (@margadcm) January 9, 2025
The link between Torremolinos and the LGBT community goes back a long way. In the 1960s, when the dictatorship and its constrained morality were in their final throes, this town, then a neighbourhood of Malaga, served as an area for pleasures that were prohibited at the time. This fishing town became a gateway to the freedom and diversity denied in the official narrative. During this era, people slept during the day and lived at night. In Plaza de la Nogalera and Pasaje Begoña, there were family restaurants, flamenco clubs, nightclubs, flirtatious jazz establishments and venues frequented by lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transvestites, uncorking a movement that is still fighting for rights today.
Torremolinos' status as a point of reference for the LGBT community has also generated rejection, censorship and concerns as a reactionary response to this area of freedom in the heart of the Costa del Sol. This was what happened in 1971, when a police raid resulted in dozens of arrests, the closure of several premises and an outcry from the international press and foreign embassies.
Much later, during the return to democracy, the then mayor Pedro Fernández Montes slipped up on several occasions with statements and even official communications in which he referred to gay tourism as "low-grade" (sic) and distinguished between "serious and respectable" homosexuals. In another surreal note, Montes denied that La Nogalera was "the Chueca of Torremolinos" and claimed that the square "has no connotation related to any kind of sexual orientation".
These attitudes were left behind with the governments of José Ortiz (2015-2021) and Margarita del Cid (2021 - until now), who have promoted the LGBT Pride in the municipality, an event that brings together hundreds of thousands of people and which has promoted gay tourism in the town. Under the leadership of Del Cid, in fact, Torremolinos presented its candidacy to host EuroPride 27.
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