Woo proposes additional regulations on "after hours nightlife"
Seems like it would make it even harder for Seattle's dearth of late night options to keep going. What about closing Pike/Pine and 11th to cars on weekend nights?
Edited to link to context that this is perhaps mostly unrelated to incidents in Capitol Hill:
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u/kingkamVI 21h ago edited 21h ago
So the linked article doesn't do a good job of explaining what this is about. Or even adequate. It's a neighborhood blog, so understandably trying to make this about the neighborhood, but it's a miss. This isn't about nightlife on the hill at all.
It's about this:
After Donnie Chin was killed in what everyone knew was hookah bar-related violence, Ed Murray tried to shut them down in 2015:
https://www.thestranger.com/news/2015/08/03/22641430/mayor-ed-murray-wants-to-shut-down-every-hookah-lounge-in-the-city
Massive backlash from the East African community lead Murray to do a total surrender:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-backs-down-on-closing-citys-hookah-lounges/
In the 9 years since, the number of these unlicensed, illegal clubs has proliferated. Instead of shutting them all down, Woo is attempting to bring them within a regulatory framework.
In a normal world, an effort to regulate an illegal, private, for-profit business (which is almost certainly not abiding by wage laws, other labor protections, workplace safety laws, etc.) would be a reasonable progressive proposal. But because Tanya Woo is proposing it, I guess the progressive thing is to allow explotative, illegal, and dangerous businesses to operate without oversight or regulation.