Added Activities: It’s Baaaaaack…
The Seattle Times reports today that Seattle nightclubs and neighborhood residents are working together to craft rules “that would give the city the muscle it now lacks to force sloppy nightclub operators to change their business practices or risk being shut down,” by requiring “all clubs and bars to apply for a nightclub license — and live up to new rules of conduct.”
What the Times doesn’t mention is that the new rules would effectively duplicate the controversial “added activities ordinance,” a law that required club owners to obtain a license for live music or dancing. That ordinance was overturned as an unconsitutional prior restraint on free speech in 1999; the new proposal, which is coming out of Mayor Greg Nickels’s office, appears to get around the free-speech issue by licensing nightclubs themselves, rather than entertainment—a constitutionally protected activity.
Although Jordan Royer, the former bartender and mayoral staffer charged with crafting the nightclub proposal, did not return numerous calls for comment, task force co-chair Brett Allen confirmed that Royer did recommend “some form of licensing. What was disappointing,” Allen added, “was that the mayor’s office was supposed to be balancing the regulation of nightlife with some sort of assistance program” for clubs; instead, he said, “all we’ve seen is the regulation part.”
For the record, the Nightclub Task Force in no way represents the whole Nightclub or music industry. Most people I am aware of oppose any sort of effort to license entertainment. Legal steps to block anything of the sort are already being discussed.
If people can remember back to the whole Joint Assessment Task Force, we were told then that the JAT was not about targetting Nightclubs, that it was looking at ALL late night businesses and was meant to assess what was going on late night and how to regulate it since most enforcement at night is left up to the Police who can't be expected to do it all.
Well, fast forward to now, and it seems we were being misled. The proposed regulations apply ONLY to Nightclubs, there is no increased enforcement being proposed, poice or otherwise, and no support for the industry, just new, costly regulations that will increase the amount of power the Police have over the music scene, and put new burdens on clubs doing nothing wrong. The proposals will mean that every music venue that serves alcohol will have to get a new license that can be suspended by the Police, the same Police who harrassed all ages events, gay and hip-hop venues for years with the added activities permit and Teen Dance Ordinance. The new plan takes us right back to the Mark Sidran era of Police regulating free speech activities.
They say this is like the San Francisco model, which is complete bull. The San Francisco model set up a new commission headed up by nightlife proffessionals who were by ordinance PRO nightlife. All license suspensions go through the commission and the Police are removed from the decision making.
There is a lot of seeming deception going on around this issue, and it seems more like the Police are once again driving the conversation, much as they did with Added Activities, TDO, Mixed Use, etc. The City needs a strong advocate for the music community running this conversation but it seems the Police, the same ones recently investigated by the FBI for corruption, are in charge. Bummer.
I hope the Mayor remembers the strong support from the music community that gt him elected and looks at a better solution for the issues at hand.