SAN ANTONIO – An iconic gay nightclub may be able keep the dance party going, though with less dancers on the floor.
Patrick Christensen, an attorney for Bonham Exchange, confirmed it signed an agreement with the city on Thursday to remain open with reduced occupancy while it installs a years-overdue, required sprinkler system.
A city spokesman later told KSAT the city was reviewing the agreement and working towards finalizing it Friday.
KSAT has requested a copy of the agreement, but has not received it yet.
Though the deal would keep the city from shutting down Bonham completely, it would reportedly cut its current occupancy of roughly 650 people by more than half — to less than 300 people — while work on a sprinkler system gets underway.
The agreement came before the city council was scheduled to discuss a possible deadline extension for bars like Bonham to install the requisite automatic sprinklers, without reducing their occupancy.
After a closed-door discussion, however, council members postponed the issue until Feb. 12.
General Manager Joan Duckworth was visibly emotional as she left council chambers before the city council reconvened. She confirmed she had reached an agreement, but declined to comment further.
Duckworth previously said she needed time to raise money for the estimated $550,000 sprinkler system and that restricting occupancy to less than 300 people “would virtually shutter us.”
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones told reporters the deal would reduce the initial occupancy to less than 300 while the club installs sprinklers on the first floor, and raise it to 343 while it works on the second floor.
Jones did not know the exact occupancy level Bonham would be allowed once the project was completed, but said the club would have about six months to complete each of the phases.
“I personally reached out to Joan Duckworth to let her know, ‘I’m willing to help you, but this place has to be safe,’” Jones said.
The mayor said she agreed to help fundraise for the bar, which she said was a “special place” for her.
Jones, who is openly gay, said she visited Bonham while she was still in the U.S. Air Force Reserve under the now-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
“So this has always, for me, been about making sure that that place is safe. And I think we got to a resolution that helps do that. And now I’m on the hook for helping to raise money,” she said, “but I know the community will rally to make sure that the Bonham Exchange continues to operate for another 40 years, right?”
Following the postponed item, there was confusion over what happens next.
Christensen told reporters the city hadn’t signed the deal yet and characterized it as “still open to negotiations,” while one of the council members who had put the possible deadline extension on the agenda, Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), said he had been informed staff had signed the deal.
McKee-Rodriguez also told reporters that the issue would be “administratively withdrawn” by “the city,” and he did not believe it would be on next week’s agenda.
“What I would convey is that it is all a moot point,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “The item was a moot point because the compliance agreement was signed this morning.”
A city spokesman later told KSAT agreement was under review.
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1), who had led the charge to try to get Bonham more time to comply with the sprinkler requirement, declined to comment.
BACKGROUND
The city says Bonham Exchange, which opened in 1981, is more than two years overdue to retrofit its 1891 building with automatic sprinklers.
The San Antonio City Council changed its fire code in June 2018 to require bars and nightclubs that hold more than 300 people to either install sprinklers or reduce the number of people they let in.
The city says the requirements were a direct, long-term response to the 2003 Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island, which killed 100 people.
New nightclubs have to install sprinkler systems if they hold more than 100 people.
The original deadline for bars and nightclubs to comply with the retrofitting requirement was October 2023, and representatives from the San Antonio Fire Department have had multiple site visits and conversations since 2018 to explain the law and requirements.
Duckworth told KSAT on Monday she has worked at Bonham for more than 20 years, but “was not in a position of power until last March,” and did not realize how “drastic” things were with the need for a sprinkler system.
In February 2024, the city said it notified 15 nightclubs that they still were not in compliance.
It began citing locations in August 2024 and has filed 67 court cases so far, according to backup documents for Thursday’s meeting.
In December, the city said it asked the remaining seven nightclubs to sign agreements by Jan. 31 to come into full compliance: Bonham Exchange, Heat Nightclub, Industry Nightclub, Club 727, I-10 Icehouse, Nuevo Volcan, and Paper Tiger.
Six of the seven ended up signing the agreements, which required restricting occupancy to less than 300 people and having trained staff on site look for fire hazards.
Some of the bars have sprinkler systems installed and are just waiting for a hookup, and at least have plans to install fire-rated doors to create a fire barrier.
Bonham Exchange, though, did not sign an agreement ahead of the deadline.
Duckworth told KSAT on Monday that it could raise the money needed for a system, but needed time and the ability to let in more people than the city wanted.
“I can’t keep the doors open with less than 300 people,” Duckworth said Monday. “That would virtually shutter us, either slow death or immediate death.”
Without an agreement, Bonham’s attorneys say it faced having its certificate of occupancy pulled, which would also close the business.
However, the deadline was pushed off after Kaur, McKee-Rodriguez, and Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5) had a vote put onto Thursday’s agenda.
In a Jan. 23 memo, the council members requested an extension of the deadline for the seven businesses to comply with the sprinkler requirement until Feb. 1, 2027, “without a reduction to their operating scale or capacity.”
“The goal is to keep them in compliance agreements, but just compliance agreements that they can stay in business with,” Kaur told KSAT on Monday.
“To me, it’s more of a public safety threat to close down an institution that people go to where they feel safe and where they feel like they’re accepted and wanted,” she said. “That is a bigger safety threat — that we would be closing down an institution like that.”
Christensen told reporters the deal they signed was better than one ahead of the Jan. 31 deadline, with fewer fire watch requirements and expedited permitting to open up more space out front.
KSAT’s Garrett Brnger reported Monday on Bonham’s potential closure. Read more on this story: