Politics Why is Mayor Nickels Acting like Mark Sidran?
Last week, Erica C. Barnett broke the news that Team Nickels was floating a proposal to regulate clubs out of existence: a new noise ordinance; summary nightclub license suspensions by the police; a requirement that clubs police adjoining properties; and a rule that clubs can lose their licenses if anyone sneaks in drugs . The annoying development probably strikes a lot of Stranger readers as a bizarre play from the mayor… one that will cost him dearly politically … right?
In short, you’re wondering: What is Nickels thinking? Along with his attempt to regulate strip clubs out of business, his new assault on regular old nightclubs seems like a crazy miscalculation, no?
Actually: No. Despite the Stranger’s horror at Nickels’s transmogrification into your 7th grade teacher, his self-conscious & ham-fisted anti-nightlife ploy is likely to play well with much of the public.
Here’s the deal: Nickels is worried that his other policy play—tampering with longstanding zoning regulations to promote density—is politically dangerous. Nudging Seattle toward big citydom makes a lot of Seattleites uncomfortable and makes Nickels a bad guy to old-school Seattle. So, he’s made the political decision to couple his efforts to transform Seattle into a big city with a simultaneous war on nightclubs to win points with the voters he may be alienating with his density stuff. (Not to mention winning points with developers.) It’s actually a smart political calculation. Clampdowns are sexy and high-profile. He’s going to get a lot of ink for his war on fun, and it will inoculate him against the charge that he’s abandoning Seattle’s small-town charm with his development agenda.
Unfortunately, by clamping down on the very cultural spark that comes with growth, Nickels misses the point entirely: He’s undermining his own development agenda. It’s a wise move politically, but it’s a dumb policy for our city.
I don’t think Nickels personally buys into these condescending regulations, but I think he sees it as a political windfall.
So is it the mayor's plan to rid the city of all these terrible nighclubs so he can replace it with mixed use condos?
Pretty soon Seattle will be famous for having a non-descript condo building on every fucking street corner.