Be on the lookout for the new Gay & Lesbian Times red boxes on the corner. The paper recently added 36 new distribution boxes throughout San Diego County, including downtown San Diego, Little Italy, Kensington, Normal Heights, University Heights and La Jolla. Placement of boxes in these new locations is designed to increase the paper’s visibility outside of the traditional GLBT community.

“In order to support the exciting new locations and 36 new distribution boxes, we decided to also increase the number of papers we print each week,” said publisher Michael Portantino.

The Gay & Lesbian Times now has a distribution of 15,700 copies per issue, and is a verified audit newspaper. “Being an audited newspaper means that an outside organization actually goes from stop to stop upon delivery to make sure we put out the number of copies we are claiming,” explained Todd Klein, assistant to the publisher. “They go back to the same stops a week later to track exactly how many copies have been picked up.”

“Being audited has been a valuable tool for us in helping define and refine where to increase our distribution.” Portantino added.

Readership for the paper, which is distributed throughout San Diego, Palm Springs and Los Angeles counties, is estimated at 38,750 based on a Simmons survey finding that each issue is read by an average of 2.3 people.