One of the elephants in this particular room was the constant harassment by the GPP police of the patrons of The Deck, one of the very few openly gay-identified businesses on the east side. GPP police cars regularly sat just past the bar in GPP and would follow and regularly stop patrons who came out of the bar and drove into GP. They would also often follow cars well into Detroit [[as reported by Sumas above) if they had parked on the GPP side of the alley or even people who were just turning around from the south side of the street to head back west into Detroit. It was also reportedly not uncommon for the GP police to threaten people with "exposure" [[to family, employers, GP News, etc.) if they didn't shut up and pay up [[this happened to a relative of mine). State liquor control agents were sent in with stunning regularity to monitor and cite underage drinking, over-serving, etc., in response to anonymous "complaints."
The Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, and even the Detroit City Council, where I worked then, often received complaints about these actions, but reaching out to GPP officials was met with stony silence. Even to this day there are many people who think the Deck had its business fatally harmed, and the building was bought to be torn down, specifically because of the Pointes' hostility towards having a gay bar on their border.
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