citations & references:

• Per JD Chandler and Theresa Griffin Kennedy in their book Murder and Scandal in Prohibition Portland, writes on page 22, “…many others like him, was forced to live a double life, and an underground gay culture developed. The Imperial Hotel on Southwest Twelfth was the center of the secret gay culture downtown, with the basement men’s room ofted used for sexual liasons. Around the hotel a small colony of gay-owend businesses grew. The ABC Restaurant owned by Claude Bronner, and E.S.J. McALlister’s Smart Shop Millinery Store were among the businesses that catered to a gay clientel. Using secret code words and clothing signals, the business owners and their customers kept their gay identity a closely guarded secret.”  

• In George Painter’s book The Vice Clique: Portland’s Great Sex Scandal, on page 49 he writes, “The third (The Portland News) EXTRA! Finally named names. Although the News earlier claimed “more than 50” were in custody, it did not explain why only 13 were in jail…Burt T. Thornton, 38 co-owner of the ABC restaurant, Claude D. Bronner, 42 co-owner of the ABC restaurant…on page 155, The penitentiary received its first Vice Cique Scandal inmate with the guilty pleas of Claude Bronner, co-owner of the ABC Restaurant downtown. He pleaded guilty at the recommendation of his attorney.”

  On page 156, “After his arrest, creditors closed the restaurant, showing the financial devastation he faced owning to his arrest.” On page 199, “He was the co-owner of the ABC Restaurant in downtown Portland. Bronner apparently did not seek much publicity for the restaurant. It is not listed in either the 1910 telephone directory or the city directories business listings during this year, and did not advertise, as many other downtown-area restaurants, in the publication of Lincoln High School. It also never sought a liquor license. Should be noted that the home that he and Nathan Healy shared during the Vice Clique Scandal remains in the 1700 block of S.W. Taylor Street.”

• PER GLAPN website: There is no record of the ABC ever applying for a liquor license, and it apparently never advertised in the local press or city directories.  

• Per the GLAPN - A Walking Tour of Downtown Portland: A Century of Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Historic Sites June 1999: The ABC restaurant, Washington St. Between 12th and 13th, now Rosenbaum Plaza, formerly 442 Washington (old number). The delicatessen of Claude Bronner and Burt Thornton was once located in this building on Washington St. (1912). Although we have no definite evidence that this was a particular hangout for Portland’s queer men of the day, it would seem quite likely that at least some of the vice scandal defendants and their friends would have frequented this establishment. Washington street at that time was an interesting conglomeration of small hotels, art galleries and curio shops, the type of street that might attract the theatrical and artistic crowd.