As the final week of her campaign to keep her seat on the Seattle City Council plays out, Tanya Woo has released details of legislation her office says would address late-night gun violence in the city by regulating venues that continue to operate after the nightly 2 AM “last call.”
Woo says her proposal would establish a new regulatory license “required for any business that allows gathering for socializing, smoking, or dancing” after last call between the hours of 2 AM and 5 AM.
The new requirements would include restricting venues to 21+ age limits, no service of alcohol between 2 AM and 5 AM, requiring at least two trained security personnel, running
a security checks for weapons upon entry, providing video surveillance of exits, and what Woo says would be “unimpeded police access while operating.”
The goal would be to bring regulation to what the councilmember has said is a proliferation of clubs operating illegally in the city after hours.
βMy intention with this legislation is to bring stakeholder groups together β to convene people impacted by the violence that occurs in illegally operated after-hour establishments. Without the proper licenses, we are unable to regulate these businesses,β Woo said.
Woo’s office says the new regulatory license would have a $250.00 application fee and “can be denied or revoked if the establishment has a single shooting incident, or two or more serious public safety incidents within the past year.”
Penalties for operating without a new regulatory license would be $1,000 for the first offense, and subsequent violations would be a misdemeanor with up to 90 days in jail.
Woo says the legislation will be introduced “in time for council committee considerations in December.”
The proposal comes following a deadly shooting earlier this month on 11th Ave that left a 25-year-old woman dead amid Pike/Pine nightlife crowds.
Woo is facing a battle for her seat on the council with the Central District’s Alexis Mercedes Rinck. Public safety has been a center of the debate with Woo joining leaders like council president Sara Nelson in championing a traditional law and order approach while Rinck says true public safety requires solutions that address the root causes of crime like social and housing programs.
CHS asked the Rinck campaign to comment on the Woo legislative proposal but did not hear back.
UPDATE: “Seattle’s diverse nightlife venues must be safe and enjoyable for all– and nightclubs need to follow state and local laws. But a new nightclub permit or license will not address the underlying epidemic of gun violence,” Rinck said in a statement to CHS about her opponent’s proposed legislation:
“Making real progress takes investments in community violence interventions, peer education, youth engagement as well as passing common sense gun laws. As the only candidate in this race endorsed by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility,” Rinck writes.
The candidate said she has made “addressing these root causes central to my campaign,” adding she will will bring “informed leadership to the City Council that helps protect young people, businesses, and communities impacted by gun violence.”
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
ππ£πΌπ·π±π³πΎπππ¦πππππ»Β
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support πΒ
Have the shootings been IN the these establishments??? I thought there were repeated drive by shootings which this doesn’t seem like it would address. It would just make it even harder for businesses (and make worse Seattle’s dearth of late night options)
Not to mention, they were before 2 am.
βUnimpeded police access while operating.β
Seriously?!?!?! How much do you want to bet the first clubs to be raided are gay ones with no history of violence?
Ummmmβ¦. Soooβ¦ We are still men and not all of us are mature and or know how to keep our hands to our selfβ¦. Please donβt idealize gay barsβ¦ now do we bring the heat like some of these other establishments who end up on Komo? Not at all!
but altercations at gay bars do happen.
I am a straight dude. But I get that gay folks are like everyone else. As a Marine in the 80’s it was means for a dishonorable discharge. Which was an administrative discharge eventually. Sad days.
You canβt be serious. Youβre just going to ignore the decades of Seattle Police using any pretense (morality, puritanical liquor laws, etc) make gay, lesbian, trans and queer people uncomfortable. Itβs not idealizing gay bars to say that SPD has targeted them for excessive inspection at any opportunity they get.
I mean. That’s not true.
It’s much more likely that a contributing factor to violence is dumping everyone onto the street all at once around 2, with people trying to cram in last minute drinks, dances, hookups, etc. before things close. Whatever handful of clubs are staying open past that point are probably reducing possible conflict on the street. Seattle’s ridiculous early bedtimes and lack of all-night activities is one of the few things distinctive about the character of the city, and it’s not (IMO) a good thing.
So, 2AM is a “ridiculous early bedtime”?
Yes, it really is, for people who like to go out at night! There are many cities where the nightlife barely gets going before midnight.
But it’s really the city-wide hard cutoff which causes the problem: if bars were allowed to close whenever it suited their clientele, they’d close up piecemeal, one by one from midnight through dawn, and the city wouldn’t have a sudden outpouring of drunk excited people who aren’t ready to sleep yet but have nowhere they can go.
It’s not just the bars and clubs I’m talking about. I grew up in a place where there were a ton of essentially 24 hour diners and cafes, places for people who wanted to do late night socialization that didn’t involve getting hammered, live music, or being part of rowdy crowds. Seattle HAD the 13 Coins, North Star, and then Lost Lake. Now I’m not sure there’s anything.
The Dog House
>running a security checks for weapons upon entry, providing video surveillance of exits, and what Woo says would be βunimpeded police access while operating.β
TSA style checks to go dancing. Wonder if she’ll show up to actually vote for this initiative.
So the solution is not to punish the businesses that are holding illegal gatherings, but rather legalize the gatherings and make the businesses pay an additional permit?
Am I missing the logic somewhere?
Tanya Woo = the new face of Seattle puritanism
This is stupid. That shooting happened before 2am.
Furthermore, it’s already illegal to serve alcohol after 2am. Or having shootings.
Seattle is already dead after 8pm in most places already. You shouldn’t need a special permit to operate late at night.
She just lost my vote.
All I can say is vote for Alexis Mercedes Rinck. This is not an effective solution
Thanks for the reporting on this! I was going to research all of the down-ballot candidates later today and this absolutely idiotic proposal just made my city council vote a whole lot easier.
None of the mentioned incidents have even happened indoors, and I don’t know a single club that doesn’t already have 2+ bouncers at the door doing purse and coat checks for hidden weapons. All this is going to lead to is increased overhead and fines for local businesses, and a barely-disguised excuse for SPD to storm into gay bars all across the hill for no reason other than to threaten their customers.
How about instead we reduce/remove access for cars and make this neighborhood more enjoyable and safe for the people that are actually patronizing it and live there? The gun violence there is predominantly gang violence from people who drive in to the city. They and their cars don’t belong there at all. Such a shame that the “superblock” that was talked about 2 years ago hasn’t come to be. Remove the cars and remove the crime.
You sound like Kemper Freeman, as he railed against the possibility of light rail bringing undesirables to Bellevue.
I don’t really care who I sound like. The reality is that the shootings in our city are almost always committed with cars utilized for fast getaways.
Was he wrong?
It seems like every other day I hear another story about a Bellevue drive-by from a stolen train. Putting those tracks in really ramped up the gang violence. We need more mall cops!
Well, the light rail is not even traveling across the lake yet, which is what Mr. Freeman was worried about. All those people from certain Seattle neighborhoods coming to cause trouble at his mall.
Yes, for some, the light rail is the scourge of American freedom.
There’s a bit of a difference between getting vehicles out of a high pedestrian area that has had a history of car-related violence and some NIMBY being scared that public transit is going to his neighborhood.
You continue to generally bring nothing of value to these comments Glenn…
i am merely pointing out the irony of progressive urban Seattleites advocating to keep people they consider undesirables from entering certain neighborhoods. The parallels with Kemper Freeman are unmistakable, as he advocated to keep his version of undesirables from entering his business neighborhood. Whether the undesirables travel by car or transit is irrelevant. It is the idea that we should restrict the movement of certain populations that is actually problematic. I see instructive irony here. Some of you may not, which is fine. I will never question your right to comment here, whether you agree with me or not.
And, yet, it is relevant. They can still drive in and park a few blocks away or in a parking structure for all I care. It’s not about restricting movement of lower class individuals, but rather keeping cars out of specific areas where they are utilized for gun violence. What difference does it make to an individual’s movement that drives in to this neighborhood if they can’t park right in front of a nightlife establishment where these sorts of things happen?
I suspect that if cars weren’t allowed on these streets with nightlife, the frequency of such events would decline (not disappear completely).
Man your victim complex and ability to obfuscate basic concepts is out of this world! See Kyle’s response for your basic point, there’s a difference between not wanting cars and not wanting people…
I’m not questioning your right to comment, I’m just encouraging you to provide more relevant, thoughtful, and helpful comments.
Why you focus on my comments, among all the asinine comments on this blog, is a mystery to me Matt. I suppose I should take it as a compliment, as I suspect I disturb the bats in your otherwise dark and lifeless intelleΔtual silo. I encourage you to simply skip my comments in the future and save yourself the pain you seem to experience by their very existence.
There’s rules for shooting and driving. No need for more laws.
It’s the whole street takeover shoot em up rodeos. If we blocked off the area on weekends? It would help. Especially on the Hill here.
They shouldn’t be drinking and driving anyway. Good to walk it off and support a street vender.
You don’t understand.
We live here. Everyone wants to pack in housing here. They also want vast parking. As many open lanes for cars as the road width allows.
Hmmm…okayyyy..>Pile it on for 20+ years straight.
How about this instead. We close down our streets and divert them to the side streets and other neighborhoods?
Oh wait..>That’s right. They whine and cry about housing bringing “undesirables” to there “one family home” lilly white neighborhoods. But packing them into the smallest space possible for the least cost? Excellent idea! So long as we don’t end street parking. Or any pesky bike lanes. These people ain’t had sidewalks for years and don’t need them. The parked cars protects them from traffic.
Au contraire! I think that Glenn adds an important moderate voice to this forum, and his comments are well-informed and thoughtful.
Of course you do, you both like to spew misinformation like it’s fact to support your arguments!
totally different deal.
I too would enjoy a public-square type arrangement. We can’t close the streets entirely because those businesses need deliveries and those streets are main routes through the neighborhood. We could have them closed off, say Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday evenings from 730-1am, along with a couple of designated locations on the periphery for uber/cab pickups so people can get home safely.
Honestly, I’ll take what I can get when it comes to pedestrianizing. If it’s only certain hours, great. Better than the near-nothing we have in our neighborhood right now.
I’m totally down with car free weekends. Roads are Mon-Fri.
Woo has had 10 months to figure out how to be effective and she canβt even clean up the 12th and Jackson cesspool in her own neighborhood. Stuff like this is window dressing and she knows it. Vote Rinckβ¦..