From Hollywood Boulevard we took a short drive down to the Sunset Strip home to places like The Viper Room, Whiskey a Go Go, The Rainbow Room, The Comedy Store, The Laugh Factory and the Roxy among others.
As the Strip lies outside of the Los Angeles city limits and was an unincorporated area under the jurisdiction of the County of Los Angeles, the area fell under the less-vigilant jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Department rather than the heavy hand of the LAPD. It was illegal to gamble in the city, but legal in the county. This fostered the building of a rather wilder concentration of nightlife than Los Angeles would tolerate, and in the 1920s a number of nightclubs and casinos moved in along the Strip, which attracted movie people to this less-restricted area; alcohol was served in back rooms during Prohibition.
In the early 1970s a popular hangout for glam rock musicians and groupies was Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco. The 1979 Donna Summer song “Sunset People” from the album Bad Girls, was about the nightlife on Sunset Boulevard. Also, throughout the 1970s, much like New York City’s Times Square, the Strip became a haven for sleaze and prostitution. The Strip continued to be a major focus for punk rock and new wave during the late 1970s, and it became the center of the colorful glam metal and heavy metal scenes throughout the 1980s, hosting groups including Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Poison, L.A. Guns, Guns N’ Roses and Whitesnake. [SOURCE]
No – we didn’t get to go in anywhere and all of the pictures were taken from the moving vehicle but you could already see that.
