Half Moon Bay is now home to the Bay Area's newest LGBTQ community center, which encourages connections for coastal residents of San Mateo County, from Pacifica to Pescadero. The CoastPride Community Center officially opened its doors in a two-story building in the city's main corridor on June 1, at the start of Pride Month. CoastPride provides a safe space online and at community events to bring together the diversity of our voices, raise awareness of LGBTQ issues, and address the needs of our LGBTQ youth, families and adults. We work with existing local civic, government, for-profit and non-profit organizations to improve services to include everyone who plays, works and they live on the coast.
Since last June, Half Moon Bay officials have been waving a Pride flag in front of their City Hall, and neighboring cities have followed their example this Pride Month, in response to the county's LGBTQ commission calling on all cities and towns in the jurisdiction to raise a pride flag this month. And this means that the county is now one of two in the Bay Area with multiple LGBTQ centers, since there are also two that operate across the bay, in Alameda County. Real estate agent David Oliphant, 58, has lived in Half Moon Bay for more than a decade with his husband, choreographer Christopher Childers, 56, who will be opening a costume store on Main Street this weekend with a launch party to raise funds for the new center. The downtown location, at 711 Main Street, is easily accessible on foot from almost anywhere in Half Moon Bay, and residents from outside the city can access it by car or public transportation.
