New York has banned adult saunas, often called bathhouses, since 1985. That regulation was written at the height of the AIDS epidemic, before anyone had access to PrEP, routine HIV testing, or the antiretroviral treatments that have transformed how we prevent and manage HIV today. Four decades later, the law hasn't caught up with the science.

State Sen. Erik Bottcher and Assemblymember Tony Simone have introduced the Public Health Modernization Act to fix that. Instead of an outright ban, the bill would direct state health officials to build a system for licensing and overseeing these businesses, so they operate under real public health standards instead of in the shadows.

That distinction matters. When an activity is banned outright, health officials lose the ability to inspect facilities, connect people with testing, or distribute prevention resources. Regulating bathhouses instead of prohibiting them gives the state real tools to protect public health, not fewer.

New York is now behind other cities on this. Minneapolis repealed its own decades-old ban earlier this year, and San Francisco has operated under a licensing system for years instead of a blanket prohibition. A law written for a 1980s public health emergency shouldn't still be the standard four decades later, especially when the emergency that justified it looks nothing like it did in 1985.

This bill doesn't ask New York to ignore public health, it asks New York to update its approach to match what's actually known about preventing HIV in 2026. The state Department of Health would have 180 days to build a licensing framework modeled on best practices already working elsewhere.

Sign this petition to demand New York lawmakers pass the Public Health Modernization Act and finally replace an outdated 1985 ban with modern, evidence-based public health regulation.