Despite arguments from city officials that the change would make Seattle a safer place and pleas from Capitol Hill nightlife entrepreneurs to have more freedom to set their own course, the Washington Liquor Control board voted 2 to 1 Wednesday morning to deny the City of Seattle petition to grant local municipalities the power to set their own liquor service hours.
In March, the board members came to Seattle for a hearing on the petition that included a heavily Capitol Hill-flavored period of public comment on the proposed changes. Proponents argued that allowing bars that met certain standards to serve later into the wee hours would eliminate last call binging and the rush of bar patrons into and onto the streets at 2a. Opponents said the initiative was driven by business interests and would spread the maladies of closing time into all hours of the day. The Seattle Times reports that police chiefs in Spokane and Vancouver spoke against the proposal and the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs voted last week to oppose it.
The denial is a blow to Mayor Mike McGinn’s Seattle Nightlife Initiative, an effort to embrace the city’s food and drink economy.
Another special interest attempts to externalize its costs to residents and fails.
I knew this would be voted down, but I’m still a little bummed about it.
Don’t worry, it’s not over. That was just one vote. Remember, we lost the first vote on overturning the Teen Dance Ordinance too. We also lost a lawsuit. Then we won and election, and then it changed. We’re in this for the long haul.
I hope the election you are referring to as won is not the mayoral election. Nobody won in that election.
That’s all we’d need: drunk shitheads yelling all night. At least now the noise dies down sometime after 2 AM.
Screw the Liquor Control Board, they could shove their vote up their ass!!! That Board wields way too much power and shouldn’t be empowered to make such policy. Our elected officials, i.e. the City Council should’ve voted for it and the LCB should have to comply with that vote. This Board’s power is too extreme and unconstitutional. The LCB are not the elected representatives in charge of what’s best for Seattle. The State legislature seriously needs to curtail some of their power. This action needs to be challenged on a constitutional merit.
Where do you live? If you live outside a bar now and drunk people are keeping you up at night, that’s your own fault. Move.
Keeping the bars open later would probably have the reverse effect. No more mass exodus of drunken rowdy people at 2am. Letting them taper off at night would be much more manageable.
How does one (or a city) go about removing archaic and paracitic positions or departments? Or, someone please explain the relevance of the wsacb?
The bar opened after I moved here, dumb ass.
Instead of everybody moving, how about bar patrons acting with some consideration toward the residents of the neighborhood around their bar? But I joke.
“Letting them taper off at night” would mean letting douchebags yell and slam their car doors all night. But some of us have jobs. Thank Jah that this fucked up idea was voted down.
Or, someone please explain the spelling of “parasitic.”
Hasn’t anybody else noticed that the upsurge in violent crime on Cap Hill has a direct correlation with both increased population density and the increase of establishments primarily oriented toward serving alcohol? Praise night life all you want, from the Mayor on down, but developing policies which encourage both density and alcohol consumption looks to me like a short-sighted effort (all hail, Good For Business At Any Cost) which ignores the long-term effect and cost (violent crime, property damage, increased police resources, and overall quality of life).
As someone said in a recent comment on another, related, story: if you want to live upstairs from a bar, move there — but don’t assume that more drinking people crowded together is everybody’s idea of a good time.