Ira Sandler, San Francisco's 'king of clubs,' dies at age 73

Ira Sandler, longtime owner of San Francisco's 1015 Folsom dance club and architect of the city's nightlife scene, died unexpectedly on May 26 of a heart attack at age 73.

In the 1990s, 1015 Folsom became one of the first clubs on the West Coast to bring in European DJs like Sasha and Carl Cox, faxing offer sheets overseas long before email was widely used. The SoMa venue championed all varieties of electronic music, from trance to dubstep, going on to include hip-hop shows like DMX and superstars like Prince.

"He really loved music that spoke to the body," said Noah "DJ Dials" Bennett, booker at 1015, who referred to Sandler as a father figure. "He really believed in dancing. He didn't really care for showmanship as much as the way that people move and feel. He always prioritized the dancers."

Sandler grew up the son of two educators in the Flatbush and Sheepshead Bay neighborhoods of Brooklyn, attending Stuyvesant High School, where he played football and baseball. He graduated from CUNY Buffalo with a master's degree in media. Soon after, he traveled to California to visit his sister Mya Shone, then decided to stay and began working as a professional photographer, shooting several cover stories for Mother Jones magazine, Shone told SFGATE.

"They sent him to Las Vegas for Tina Turner. This is the one I remember most, because I asked Ira if he would give Tina Turner a kiss for me, because she was my idol at the time, and he did," Shone said during a phone call with SFGATE.

Then Sandler went back to school at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he began throwing events. A photo of one of his first parties, an event described as a punk rock wedding, hangs in SFMOMA. One of his earliest event series was called Noh Club, which took place at what is now the AMC Kabuki theater in Japantown, where he booked bands like Fine Young Cannibals and the English Beat, as well as fashion shows and DJs.

"It was way ahead of his time, the whole art scene and fashion shows and bringing all the cultures together under one roof," said Martel Toler, longtime friend of Sandler who threw the Release club night in the '90s and now owns Beso Mae nightclub. "Ira was like a visionary, he had a vision to do something and he executed. He wasn't just someone who talked about doing it. He put his ideals into action. I called him the king of clubs," said Toler during a phone call.

Sandler then began managing a small club on Polk Street. In 1986, he was tapped to take over the club now known as 1015 Folsom, which was originally a co-ed bath house called Sutro before it became a nightclub. When Sandler took over, it began operating under the name Das Klub. He became owner in 1989 and rebranded the club as 1015 Folsom.

"I'm trying to interpret the space in a thoughtful way, to show the space's structural strength. ... It used to look like a Union Street fern bar and now we're going for a factory look, with distressed concrete. Kind of a Berlin in the '20s look," he told the San Francisco Examiner at the time.

"1015 was Ira's vision," said Shone, who also worked for the club, eventually serving as chief financial officer. Jodha Singh Khalsa, Sandler's brother, also chipped in as a CPA. "It's not like he was a businessman looking for a business opportunity. He did things his own way, because he was an artist who was creating events and had to learn how you do business. Which he did. He was astute."

Under Sandler's direction, 1015 Folsom became a hot spot for celebrities, with visits from the likes of Rob Lowe, Jamie Foxx and Nicolas Cage, Toler said. His programming catered outside '90s stars and electronic music enthusiasts, though, with emphasis on the club's long-running Saturday night Latin parties, and support for LGBTQ causes through fundraisers like Real Bad, which has raised millions of dollars for charity and called 1015 home since 1999. The club was always evolving. There was a full-time architectural designer on staff for years, earning it the nickname among promoters as the "Winchester Mystery Club."

"He wanted a place that would withstand time, and he created that by putting his heart and soul into the space," said Toler.

Even as he aged, Sandler was a constant presence at the club. Although he was in his 70s and living in San Rafael, he would come to the club nearly every weekend, making sure to greet every security guard before popping into the green room to say hello to talent.

"Ira was always super generous with his time, he never talked about himself. He was super humble, never bragged, never name dropped. He was a great listener," booker Bennett said.

Rafael Fierro, who began working at 1015 in the early 1990s and went on to own the club F8, recounted how later in life Sandler loved to make big healthy salads, go to the movies, and meet up to spontaneously drive around Marin. And he remarked on Sandler's meticulous business acumen.

"He could take a nightclub and figure out the monetary value of a night in minutia, down to the square footage of the club. He could somehow analyze how much he could make per square foot, per person, per sale," he said.

The club's reputation has been cemented in San Francisco history as perhaps the city's premier place to go dancing, 40 years since it initially opened, no matter what type of music you're interested in. It will continue operating in Sandler's absence, with hundreds of dancers still filling its dance floor every weekend.

"It's touched the lives of more people than I could ever envision," said Shone, of her brother's legacy.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published June 7, 2026 at 7:10 PM.