Politics The Kids are Alright
On March 30, in the wake of the Capitol Hill murders, Savage and I wrote:
The Stranger has filed a public-records request with the Seattle Police Department to track any history of 911 calls to Seattle’s all-ages venues to see if, as the Seattle Times assumes, there actually are problems with all-ages shows. (The request could not be completed in time for this story.) We asked for a tally of police calls to Ballard’s Paradox, Downtown’s Vera Project, Eastlake’s El CorazĂłn, and SoDo’s Studio Seven (a teen dance club that the Seattle Times originally and—incorrectly—associated with Saturday’s massacre). It is possible that our records request will turn up a pattern of trouble, but it is unlikely, given that in the four years since the TDO was repealed we’ve only been alerted to one problem at one recent show.
My public records request was completed this week, and here’s what it turned up: In the last four years since the TDO was repealed, there have been a grand total of 11 calls for service to the SPD for between the estimated 1,000 and 2,500 all-ages shows that have happened at those venues. I repeat: Only 11 calls for between 1,000 an 2,500 shows.
(The estimate on the number of shows is based on Megan Seling’s all-ages calendar, which consistently tallies anywhere from five to 12 all-ages shows per week at those clubs. Additionally, we checked the dates of the police calls to those clubs and only counted them if the record showed an all-ages show at that time.)
you should tell people what they were for. I'm pretty sure the only time we ever called the police at Vera was when some dude fell down our stairs by accident and popped his head open.