After a long wait, Gipsy Nightclub is set to reopen, according to detailed and extensive recent coverage in the Las Vegas Spectrum. The club is a longtime mainstay of the Las Vegas LGBTQ community, with a storied and often difficult past. The club—to be rebuilt from the ground up—was aiming for a 2021 opening but is now anticipating an opening in May or June of 2022.
Paperwork filed not long ago with Clark County estimated a budget of $670,000 for construction. A rebuild in several phases was outlined in the Las Vegas Spectrum coverage: 1) bringing the grounds up to standard to curbing, parking, and lighting, 2) construction of the club’s open-air first floor surrounding a carousel bar, and 3) later, construction of a disco on the second floor. The Spectrum reported that the rebuild is expected to total $5 million.
In its new form, Gipsy will be a 10,000 sq.-ft. space with a “Pirates of the Caribbean” feel, brand new in just about every way except the name (which remains, despite being considered offensive to Romani people).
The night club first rose to prominence in the 70’s under the name Disco Fever, and it remained even after its somewhat mysterious destruction in 1978, when it was burned down by an arsonist.
Rumors that the arsonist was Marge Jacques, who operated Disco Fever, were never substantiated. Las Vegas’s gay and lesbian bars, as was the case most everywhere at the time, were subject to discrimination by police and other groups, both de facto and de jure. The club was set afire by an arsonist again in 1988, and firefighters were suspiciously slow to respond.
But, a reflection of the resiliency of its community even in the face of hardship and discrimination, the nightclub overcame these odds and is poised to make yet another comeback in the hands of Paul San Filipo, who bought it in 1994 and has been operating it ever since, along with his other nightclub project, Piranha.
What Now Las Vegas reached out to San Filipo on Monday afternoon. Filipo was not available to comment on the news.
