A company owned by Stuart Shoen, whose family founded U-Haul, is asking a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to throw out the liquor license for Barracks Bar Phoenix, a gay leather bar planned for 4601 N. Seventh Ave. in the city’s Melrose District.
Shoen’s 18 SAC LLC filed the appeal Aug. 17, Phoenix New Times reported Oct. 27 in a story first published by the nonprofit newsroom LOOKOUT. The case names the Arizona State Liquor Board and Barracks Bar Phoenix Inc.
It asks the court to freeze the board’s July decision, vacate the license and hold a trial de novo, which would start the case over. Judge Michael Gottfried is assigned. No trial date has been set.
Owner Matthew Moody has sunk close to $500,000 into the project, New Times reported. He took a second mortgage on his house and sold a 1965 Fender Stratocaster.
“We’re losing these spaces,” Moody told LOOKOUT in July. “If we don’t preserve them, they’re just gone.”
Inside 18 SAC’s Appeal Against the Arizona State Liquor Board
The appeal argues there wasn’t enough evidence that Moody is qualified to hold a license. It says the board wrongly refused to send the protest to an independent administrative law judge and let Moody improperly amend his application. It also says the board had no authority to grant a provisional license.
18 SAC also challenges how its subpoena requests got turned down. Ben Henry, director of the state Department of Liquor Licenses and Control, rejected them before the July hearing.
“During my tenure as director, and for more than ten years preceding me, I have not been able to locate an instance of a director granting subpoenas of this nature,” Henry wrote.
Stuart Shoen’s Objections to a Leather Bar on Seventh Avenue
Shoen bought the property next door in March and uses it to store family vehicles. At the board, he argued a sex club would drag down its value. He also cited parking and noise. He said he doesn’t object to gay bars in general.
His lawyer, Michael Raine, points to the original Barracks in Cathedral City, California. California regulators ran a four-month undercover investigation there that ended with 66 administrative allegations, including public sex. The owner there, Richard “Scott” Murchison, surrendered the license and shut the place down in 2024. Nobody was criminally charged.
“Barracks’ problem is that it did not run a ‘leather bar’ in California; it ran a sex club,” Raine wrote to LOOKOUT. He also wrote that Shoen “vehemently denies any concern with Barrack’s general LGBTQ+ themes or clientele.”
Shoen wrote to LOOKOUT that he’s a private citizen using his legal rights. “Republishing this kind of thing is not in the public interest, and I take my reputation extremely seriously,” he wrote.
Moody doesn’t buy that. “He had no problem buying next to a bar,” he said. “He only had an issue when he found out it was going to be a gay leather bar.”
Ryan Anderson, Moody’s lawyer, wrote to LOOKOUT that the opposition “is not grounded in the statutory licensing criteria, but rather in generalized discomfort with Barracks’ proposed use and its anticipated clientele.”
How Barracks Phoenix Won Its License on July 9
The state liquor board voted 5-1-1 after a hearing that ran about eight hours. Phoenix police first recommended denial because of Murchison. After he stepped down as an officer and director, police found “no basis for denial.”
At the hearing, Raine showed “Orgy in Progress” door hangers from a Chicago leather event. Moody said they reflected leather culture, not his plans. “That wasn’t for you,” he said, appearing to address Shoen. “You don’t get it.”
The board gave Moody 90 days to buy out Murchison’s stake. Records show he finished it, though the state licensing agency still has to sign off, LOOKOUT reported.
“I am excited to move forward and remain committed to operating a safe, welcoming, and professionally managed establishment,” Moody said in a July 16 statement from his law firm.
The most recent filing in the court case, a notice of appearance, came Oct. 21.
