The owner of an LGBTQ bar that was bombed in Atlanta 2 decades before the spa shootings sees similarities between the attacks

• The owner of a former LGBTQ bar in Atlanta has spoken publicly about the shootings at three spas.
• Beverly McMahon's Otherside Lounge was close to one of the spas targeted in last week's attack.
• McMahon said she sees similarities between the shootings and the bombing at her bar.

The owner of a popular LGBTQ+ nightclub in Atlanta that got bombed in the 1990s says she sees similarities between the crime two decades ago and the recent attacks on three nearby spas in which eight people died.

"The minute [the attack] happened, I thought, 'Here we go again,'" Beverly McMahon, the owner of the now-shuttered Otherside Lounge, told The Washington Post. "I just see a lot of hate. I saw it then, and I see it now."

McMahon was the owner of Atlanta's Otherside Lounge when it was bombed in February 1997, injuring five people.

The explosion was carried out by Eric Rudolph, an extremist, who according to The Post, had ties to Christian fundamentalists. He also set off bombs at Georgia's Centennial Olympic Park in 1996 and the New Women, All Women Health Care Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1998.

McMahon told The Post she believes her bar was targeted by Rudolph not only because it was welcoming to members of the LGBTQ community, but because her brother was a doctor who performed late-term abortions.

Otherside Lounge, which is no longer open, was in the same commercial strip of buildings that now houses the Gem Spa, one of the three businesses attacked last week.

Police have arrested a 21-year-old white man, Robert Aaron Long, on suspicion of the deadly shootings, and while officials are still investigating the incident and Long's motives, McMahon told The Post she believes it was a hate crime, as six of eight of the victims were Asian women.

"The gay people, they're picked on, the Asian people, they're picked on, all these groups are picked on - and the past four years has not helped with any of it," McMahon said. "With this kind of hate, we have to stay strong and band together."