At around 01:00 on Sunday morning (3rd), police raided and detained at least 50 party-goers at Q Bar, a new gay bar that has only recently opened on The Bund in Shanghai, according to reports in the website fridae.com. The report indicates that this is the most prominent raid since 2007, when the Club Deep in Jingan Park had its Halloween party raided and several people detained for drug use. Apparently patrons at Q Bar were not made to undergo urine tests, so it was not a drug raid.

 

According to one of those detained, western foreigners were not detained, and those of Chinese origin who claimed they were foreigners and not from the mainland were released.

 

It seems that much of the questioning by the authorities was about the go-go boy, including “Did he take it all off?" "Were his genitals visible?" "Were bar patrons inserting bills into his thong?"

 

Steven Bao, a DJ at the bar, was quoted in the Shanghai Daily as saying that he believed the raid to be the result of fierce competition among local bars, suggesting that it was other bars who had complained to police that the bar was staging "sex shows."

 

http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/2011/04/04/10762.police-raid-new-gay-bar-in-shanghai-dozens-detained

 

http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/2011/04/04/10763.shanghai-gay-bar-raided-in-sex-show-probe-police?n=sec

Perhaps the other bars should raise their game and introduce shows of their own, rather than complaining.

I have been to a bar in Beijing with a couple of go-go boys, and have never heard of it being raided. If only for that reason, I reckon the suggestion that the Shanghai raid was prompted by other bars may well be correct.