Gay and lesbian bookshop Gay’s the Word has window smashed
Manager Uli Lenart said they are used to these types of incidents
By Steve Brown
A window in a gay and lesbian bookshop in London has been smashed.
Gay’s the Word, which is based in the capital’s Bloomsbury area, has been open since 1979 by a small group of people from Gay Icebreakers, a gay socialist group, but manager, Uli Lenart revealed the window was vandalised over the weekend.
To fix the damage to the window would cost around £500 but the manager said luckily no one was hurt.
He told The Bookseller: “We see it for what it was. We immediately boarded it up and then got a new window put in – it didn’t stop us trading for a single second.”
More shocking, Lenart admitted that the shop was founded to have a “very visible presence” therefore incidents like this happen “intermittently”.
After using Facebook to tell the news about the shop window, the post was shared widely and an author visiting the shop donated £100.
Lenart continued: “It was a really lovely moment.
“I put the post up so people would be aware of what had happened and to foster consciousness in the gay community that although 99.9 per cent of the time things are harmonious, we should be conscious of these incidents and we should all keep an eye on each other.”
During the 1980s, the shop served as the headquarters for the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners – the group portrayed in the 2014 movie Pride.