Phoenix leather bar wins liquor license after months of objection from billionaire neighbor

An heir to the U-Haul fortune has threatened a defamation lawsuit over coverage of the story.

Nightlife promoter Matthew Moody has big plans for Phoenix’s up-and-coming gayborhood in the Melrose district: a leather bar called the Barracks.

Along with “Eagle” and “Anvil,” the “Barracks” name has a long history and is a shout-out to the leather community everywhere. Moody used to DJ at the bar of the same name in Palm Springs, California, before it closed in 2024.

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Now he’s brought what’s left of that bar 400 miles east to another desert outpost, where he hopes to resurrect it. Artwork, like pieces portraying a vintage motorcycle and larger-than-life-size Tom of Finland leather men, loiter along one of the walls of his new space, waiting to welcome patrons.

But it’s taking a minute for Moody to get the spot licensed and constructed, largely due to the objections of his next-door neighbor, a billionaire U-Haul fortune heir named Stuart Shoen. Shoen bought his property after Moody did, and according to Moody, he’s using the spot to store part of his car collection.

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But earlier this year, despite knowing his neighbor’s plans for a bar when he bought his own property, Shoen came out formally opposing Moody’s application for a liquor license. The move triggered months of hearings, legal filings, subpoenas, and delays, leaving the Barracks project in limbo, Phoenix New Times reports.

A denial would doom Moody’s plans.

The Barracks didn’t come to Phoenix without baggage. The Palm Springs bar closed after a sting operation revealed it was often operating as an unlicensed sex club. Moody originally partnered with the Palm Springs owner, Richard “Scott” Murchison, who bought the Barracks’ new location in Phoenix.

That handed Shoen an excuse.

“Barracks’ problem is that it did not run a ‘leather bar’ in California; it ran a sex club,” Shoen’s attorney said in a statement. He quoted the finding from the undercover investigation showing, “numerous patrons in as many as 60 separate instances over a few days to engage in open sexual activity in pairs and large groups on the premises and Barracks’ constant playing of pornography on their televisions.” 

Phoenix Police lodged a similar concern and initially denied a liquor license recommendation.

Under pressure, however, Murchison pulled out from his co-ownership of the planned bar and now acts solely as the Barracks landlord, Moody says. But the new arrangement hasn’t satisfied Shoen, who continues to campaign against the bar.

“He had no problem buying next to a bar,” Moody said. “He only had an issue when he found out it was going to be a gay leather bar.”

Shoen’s attorney said his client “vehemently denies any concern with Barrack’s general LGBTQ+ themes or clientele.”

Shoen himself went further, threatening journalists reporting the story. He urged Phoenix New Times and Lookout not to publish the “defamatory” account, “lest you become a party to it.”

“Republishing this kind of thing is not in the public interest,” he said, “and I take my reputation extremely seriously.”

The billionaire lost that battle when the outlets published anyway.

Then on July 10, Shoen lost again, when the Arizona State Liquor Board granted Moody’s license, with one condition: He has 90 days to completely remove Murchison from his bar’s ownership structure.

Shoen’s objections were completely overlooked, despite his lawyer repeatedly returning to the reputation of the Palm Springs location. He introduced unrelated promotional material from a Chicago leather event, including an eyebrow-raising “orgy in progress” hotel door hanger, to implicate leather culture in general, and cited “cruising” associated with the community as evidence that the bar would engage in illegal activity.

He also repeated Shoen’s claims that press and online coverage of the story was defamatory and had damaged his reputation.

Moody seemed to clap back at Shoen after months of harassment from his neighbor, zeroing in on perhaps the smallest detail in the months-long saga: the cheeky door hangers his lawyer complained about.

“That wasn’t for you,” he said. “You don’t get it.”

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