Inside Time Warp

Capitol Hill’s bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues may benefit form new legislation designed to help boost Seattle businesses by eliminating fees around things like arcade games, pool tables, and jukeboxes.

The Seattle City Council’s Public Assets and Homelessness committee will take up newly proposed legislation Wednesday hoped “to help attract/retain entertainment businesses and accelerate downtown recovery” by repealing requirements for businesses to pay “amusement device” licensing fees.

The repeal would apply citywide.

According to a council brief on the proposal, amusement devices are machines like pool tables, arcade games, and other sch devices that “provides recreation or entertainment.” Businesses operating those games currently have to pay an annual license fee that can be up to $1,500 per device, per year. The brief cites the recent example of the downtown GameWorks, “which closed and recently reopened downtown,” where the fees “can add up.”

The fee is currently applicable to “pool and billiard tables, shuffleboards, music machines, video games, pinball games, riding devices, panoram and peepshow devices, televisions and devices for display of pictures or views on film.”

On Capitol Hill, the repeal would be a small boost to many bars and venues including Time Warp, the 21+ arcade bar that opened on 10th Ave late last year.

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