Living in Florida for 22 years, I truly believe it is a great place to be gay. It wasn't just a place to get drunk,' Padron says. Although they also partied at other gay bars, Pulse felt different: To the LGBTQ community in Orlando, the club functioned as a community center.
Padron made friends with a variety of people, all of whom hung out at Pulse. You didn't care who was gay or straight, what color.' The club offered a variety of themed nights, from Twisted Tuesdays (an amateur drag night) to Latin Night, which was the theme on the night of the shooting. It was so diverse-you just didn't realize ,' he says.
When he moved to Orlando from Fort Lauderdale in 2012, he started going to Pulse. ADRiEN ), and the club is the center of his world. He works at Pulse as a host (he performs under the drag name MR. Padron spent Sunday at a friend's house, mourning the loss of their close friend, who worked as a dancer at Pulse and died on Saturday night. 'Do we just hide in our houses for the rest of our lives and never go out?'