The space that has been home to Pike/Pine’s secret all-ages dance and music space Healthy Times Fun Club has been posted for rent:
large basement office space available in cool happening capitol hill vintage building.
All it will cost you in real estate-ese is “.65/sqft/month + 3n” — such a deal.
Last week, CHS reported that the space’s landlord told the City of Seattle that the club would be evicted to comply with fire codes and permitted use of the literally underground space at 11th and Pike.
But some close to HTFC have criticized CHS for writing about the planned eviction. This fan, for example, contends that the club was not going to be evicted until CHS wrote about the situation:
Concider the possiblities before posting something like this. Perhaps the eviction is part of a bigger plan? Perhaps after a passing inspection and a name change, this place can continue on and stay secret? I happen to know for a fact that due to the attention of this article, plans to keep the space going have been deminished.
A reasonable time to bring attention to this kind of situation is… wait until after everything has been finalized. Believe it or not, this eviction was not going to be the end, but a new begining. Next time use caution and get some information from the source… HTFC’s occupants. If you can’t get information from the source, then don’t post. Simple as that.
It’s over now and nothing can be done. Concider this as food for thought.
In the meantime, it appears HTFC will go forward with its scheduled shows into November including Tuesday night’s appearance by High Places.
Was it really that secret? I feel like if I knew about it, then practically anyone could. If you live in an apartment building on this part of the hill, chances are you are going to have some 19 year old neighbors, and those neighbors will eventually (or continuously) blab about places like this.
Find a new space. Start over. Voila.
concider spellcheck, dude.
So, so snide. The “fan” has a legitimate point: If those so eager to write would have used a bit of discretion (or, reviewed recent history), those not yet privy to the existence of HTFC (i.e. the SDPD) would not have known — or at least have been so quick — to shut the place down. This is exactly what the “fan” “contends” happened.
In response to olseau, yes, it really was a “secret,” not from the community of friends who loved and supported HTFC for over four years, but simply from city departments who, for better and worse, tend to shut these kinds of places down on a regular basis all across the country. Further, there is a fine line between “blab” and effective advertisement. If you’re 19 and your favorite band is going to play a basement show and it’s $5 and there’s free dinner, you are going to tell your friends about it, flyers will be made, etc. This sort of attention does not generally breach the wall of the city’s municipal planning departments, whereas, blogs with a broader readership do.
Finally, finding a new place and starting over are incredibly difficult. Inexpensive, democratic, truly all-ages spaces are few and far between. HTFC was very special and I’m disappointed to read such callous reactions to what’s going on.
This happened because the occupants had seven or so living spaces built in a space that was permitted for a bicycle repair shop. That’s it.
The Seattle Fire Department regularly inspects commercial spaces. The most recent inspection of this space turned up the illegally built-out apartments. They reported this to the DPD and the DPD evicted everyone.
That’s how it works. If you think that the wheels of the City bureaucracy are influenced by a CHS post, well, your ignorance is seemingly boundless.
This was an illegal squat that ran an unlicensed venue THAT ADVERTISED SHOWS PUBLICLY! Here’s a page from the Hollow Earth Radio Magma Festival ( http://hollowearthradio.org/magma). Hey look – there’s the Happy Times Fun Club in the listing.
Take responsibility for yourself. You rented a squat, raised its profile, and were shut down. You fucked up.
The club has always allowed shows to be publicized, however it would go without saying the location should NEVER be made public. This has been going on for over 4 years and there’s never been any issues. It’s an unspoken rule to everyone who promotes shows at this space and that’s how it has survived. Nobody “fucked up” in that regard.
The only reason HTFC had the inspection in the first place was because it was overdue. Initially, the inspection went fine until the fire department showed up unannounced at a later date. I’m only bringing this up because it seems there are a lot of false assumptions that are coming with this occurrence. The club has taken responsibility for their actions and accepted the fact that it’s over… but it has nothing to do with a “raised profile”. They did that part RIGHT.
The reason they probably got away with having an illegal squat/music club is simply because:
A.) the landlord didn’t really care what was going on, so long as she was getting her rent every month;
B.) Usually, when SFD schedules inspections, the occupants have enough lead-time to clean up their act and get things more-or-less up-to-code, thus;
C.) SFD/DPD probably had no idea the place was being used either as a living space or as an all-ages music venue (neither of which met the DPD use code for which the space was designated) because nobody ever brought it to their attention.
So, while it’s POSSIBLE some random person at a City Dept. might have seen the CHS article, it’s just as likely that SFD saw a bunch of fire code-violations in the space that made them suspicious, so they followed-up at a time when they figured they’d catch the occupants with their pants down as it were.
And seriously, it wasn’t like the place was THAT big of a “secret”. As John Galt notes above, they advertised all over the place, albeit mostly via alternative/underground media that wouldn’t necessarily pique the interest of the authorities. But anyone driving by 11th & E. Pike on a night when they had shows (which, SFAICT was just about every weekend) would have seen a seen large crowds of under 21’s standing on a corner where there shouldn’t have been any sort of underage activity going on in the first place. Wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to put 2 & 2 together.
If the journalist here at CHS could get the news on who made this craigslist post, that would be really great. Doesn’t make any sense for the fire or police departments/landlord to allow an office space. So they don’t care about people during the day doing office work in the event of an emergency? The possible people renting it for office space might be too caught up in the “cool happening vintage”-ness of it all, that they probably wouldn’t even think to have a fire extinguisher, as were the smart folks at HTFC sound to be, based on their comments on the other article on this.
Clearly you know nothing about DPD code or how this all works.
The space that is available to rent is perfectly safe for ordinary commercial use – front and back exits, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, fully sprinkled. It is up to the commercial tenant to change the use with DPD. It could be used for all sorts of things- storage, office, workshop, artist space – how it is used is up to the tenant, their build out plans and DPD.