Coffee, Information on AIDS a Distinctive Blend at This Lounge

Crammed between a steamy nightclub and a sidewalk eatery on the oh-so-hip strip of Santa Monica Boulevard that cuts through West Hollywood, the WeHo Lounge is giving new meaning to the way AIDS information is delivered.

It’s a cool cafe that serves up coffee and condoms, iced mocha and information about the latest clinical trials for people with HIV or AIDS. Customers can trade 10 condoms wrappers for a free cup of joe. And beginning next week there will be free AIDS testing to go along with their lattes.

Billed as the nation’s first coffeehouse/AIDS information center, WeHo offers the synergy of a stylish cafe and a low-key support center. The lights are not as low and the music is not as loud as the other scenes on Santa Monica Boulevard, making the lounge more like a living room than a pickup joint.

But in this age of the AIDS cocktail (a combination of drugs intended to combat HIV), WeHo’s founders hope that the java joint will serve as a reminder that protease inhibitors are not a cure, and that safe sex is not passe.

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WeHo’s founders, the officials of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, opened the lounge in reaction to an unexpected dilemma: In the wake of some successes in recent AIDS treatment, they believed that some gay people were starting to relax when it came to protecting themselves from the disease. They figured that mixing mocha and medical resources would get to the folks who don’t go to the health care centers until it’s too late. Meanwhile, the coffeehouse, funded by a $90,000 AIDS pharmaceutical company grant, would raise money for AIDS services.

The cafe is dominated by young gay men who pass the time sipping cappuccino and lazily thumbing through the latest gay magazines. Guys gab on the comfy cheap-chic sofas and leopard-skin chairs. Internet intellectuals link up at the online station. And slick-seeming scenesters on the outdoor patio eye the passersby on the busy boulevard.

A cozy room in back features literature about the disease, such as services directories and clinical trial sign-ups and will soon feature twice-weekly HIV-testing and support groups.

Thursday nights WeHo hosts a cocktail hour, a spirited conversation with topics such as “Sex in the Age of Protease” and “I Can’t Take Another Pill” at the nearby Metropolitan Community Church. Plans are underway to film a cable access show at the lounge. Eventually, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation hopes to open cafes that target women and minorities.

Amid the casual ambience some patrons kick back with a book. Others flirt with potential prospects. The lounge tries to keep all of them from flirting with disaster.

“People don’t want to think about AIDS on a Saturday night,” said foundation founder Michael Weinstein, who added that all proceeds raised at the cafe benefit AIDS/HIV programs. “The lounge creates a safe space to socialize.”

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Some at WeHo come for the peace and quiet. Others come to find themselves.

Luis Covarrubias, 22, frequented the Six Gallery Daily Grind until it closed about six weeks ago and now plans to make WeHo his new hangout. At the coffeehouse he learned to like himself. To accept himself.

Covarrubias is feeling melancholy tonight, what with his recent graduation from UCLA. Over a root beer float, the soon-to-be master’s student writes furiously in his journal about how much he has grown inside the exposed-brick confines of this coffeehouse.

“West Hollywood was one of the few places I felt I could identify with people,” Covarrubias writes. “What this coffeehouse represented to me was a wonderful oasis of open people whom I could relate to. . . . It really helped me find my identity.”

A group of gay teenagers from Santa Monica sips latte and sings along with the jukebox, which is pumping out oldies. It was their last day of school, but their first day at the WeHo Lounge.

They talk about the summer. The parties they have planned and the upcoming gay film festival they hope to attend.

That much is cool. Not much is. A straight friend’s party: lame. A nearby coffeehouse: sleazy. But the WeHo is hip. A definite hang.

“We can’t get into any of the clubs, and there’s not much else to do besides hang at a food shop,” says Patrick, 17, who declined to give his last name. “It’s cool that the community opened this and is getting behind the cause.”