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Hamburg, for her part, said, "What we want to do is change behavior," preferably through education and other prevention efforts. "Nobody wants the government in these facilities, but if the owners and the gay community don't play some role, somebody else should step in," he said. Prevention Activists, a group that advocates stricter regulation and monitoring of commercial sex establishments.
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"Public sex in commercial establishments is a smaller part of the problem compared to sex in the homes - and that has to do with prevention," said Dennis deLeon, president of the nonprofit Latino Commission on AIDS and a member of the newly formed Gay and Lesbian H.I.V. Nor is there any consensus on whether government regulation of public sex is an effective way to reduce infection or merely a quick political fix, since the AIDS virus can be transmitted as easily in a bedroom as in a bathhouse. "Is it still a lack of information? Is it burnout and a sense of hopelessness? Is it denial? Is it recklessness? We don't fully understand." Hamburg, the city's Health Commissioner, said in an interview. "We're well over a decade into the epidemic - it does seem surprising that these kinds of establishments, which facilitate high-risk behavior and can fuel transmission, are flourishing," Dr. "Places like this facilitate multiple, anonymous sexual contacts, and the risk of transmission is so much greater there," said Doron Gopstein, the city's executive senior assistant corporation counsel, who has been handling such cases since 1985 when the city closed the Mine Shaft, a gay sex club in lower Manhattan. The West Side Club, at 27 West 20th Street, also in Manhattan, was closed April 5 but reopened on Monday after a judge vacated the temporary closing order, which was based on a zoning violation. The New David Cinema, at 236 West 54th Street in Manhattan, was closed March 29. The Earle Theater, at 73-03 37th Road in Jackson Heights, Queens, was closed Feb. Faced with an apparent resurgence in sexual practices that can lead to AIDS, New York City officials recently closed two gay theaters and a gay club and have increased inspections of other commercial sex outlets.