So glad there's nothing more important for any of the participating agencies to enforce. Carry on, boys! Put every titty in the clink! Every jockstrap gets 30 days! Also, it would be funny if Catalina Vel-DuRay was one of the jockstraprovocateurs...

Is this the Seattle Police department that is constantly whining that they have no money or officers to do even the basics of their jobs, anymore? Gosh they sure found some time and money to do this, didn’t they? This is a priority?

Correction: the problem wasn't that patrons were wearing jock-straps. The problem is that they had their bare asses hanging out, which is against the law. That said, sending in the JET was ridiculous. One WSLCB agent could have simply walked in and written the bar up.

Honest question here...is this liberal, nanny-state overreach or conservative, pearl-clutching, think-of-the-children overreach?

Either way, horrible use of resources and priorities. Thanks Inslee!

Surprised the Seattle Police component of the JET didn’t have better sense then this when their Union is so close to a new contract and they’ve been asking for money, opening a 1967 style clearly targeted shit show of a controversy right next to their precinct is brain dead.

C'mon Lads!
how Hard
can it
Be?

ditch the
jockstraps
and Acquire
some Thongs*

*Borat's
was pretty
Impeccable

c'mon Boys!

mock them
Slippery
Po-Po!

half of 'em're
likely Jealous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u4CXlIYjyE

Ok now this is the coverage that I haven't seen reported by the Stranger in a long time. And that's such a stupid law. So basically if I'm a patron with a loose fitting tank top exposing either or both of my nipples, I can be cited? That's fucked up?

I guess all nipples and ass cracks matter to the WACLCB...

Though I question the wisdom of going out this time of year in a jock, and maybe with a smidge of envy that I never was the kind who could wear one and people would say, "Yeah, that looks about right," this all sounds kinda 1960s Banned in Boston to me.

Maybe The Eagle and The Cuff could go private, charge a low membershiop admission. Would that negate the issue?

On the other hand, gay men are notorious for keeping their asses clean, but allowing exposed butts to just hang out to sit on barstools, etc. could pose a health issue. And really, would you go visit a friend and sit on their sofa bare-assed?

@9 yes we gay men are known to keep our asses clean and if it isn't we know when it's not a good time to expose them :) unless dirty asses is what you're into...

So 4 out of 15 places the SPD inspected this weekend were gay bars. And no one was arrested at the gay bars and no citations have been issued yet. Hmm.

One of the reasons I voted for the privatization of the liquor stores was the misguided assumption that it would kill off the WSLCB, which is a relic of WA state's puritanical past. Instead, they just put a vice tax on booze and kept up their nonsense.

Time to end the WSLCB and relax a lot of the laws surrounding nudity and alcohol. Just look to Oregon and copy what they do.

@12: The WSLCB have been a boil on the bare butt of Washington State for a long, long time. Their absolute insistence on 2am closing times routinely created hazardous conditions for us late-night type residents in the Pike-Pine corridor, as crowds of now-belligerent drunks would pour onto the sidewalks, just as the midnight movie ended at the Egyptian.

The WSLCB is an authoritarian anachronism, and should have been ended back in the last century.

Obviously we have too many cops.

An here I though the city government was pro-business now.

As #11 says, enforcement was not directed at gay bars, gay bars were a minority of the establishments checked. WSLCB has enforced rules against "lewd" conduct and dress for decades and without any connection to who is on the city council. The rules are arguably silly but nothing new. SPD does not direct the WSLCB whose citations are limited to establishments with liquor licenses and this does not include patrons of said places. The Stranger may hate the new city council but the council has nothing to do with WSLCB actions.

@12 is once again the voice of reason - let’s relegate the LCB to the dustbin of history (going so far as filing an initiative if our liberal representatives don’t want to back it themselves).

I guarantee wide electoral support - shut down the LCB now!

I had a part-time, seasonal job at The Cuff for almost ten years, under the original owners. I remember the stupid WSLCB rules and how we would take everything right to the edge just to irritate the WSLCB agents. One time we all went shirtless, but with black electrical tape over our nipples. The owners would show extremely softcore gay "porn" that was mostly guys making out against gauzy backgrounds.

There were a few times when bitter customers would call in fire department complaints, but the people from SFD were always good-natured, and the SPD always appreciated how the security staff took care of problems before they became problems. We'd even get the Military Police in from time to time, but we knew where to hide people if need be.

However, there is a long and shameful history of the Seattle Police Department and the WSLCB agents shaking down owners of gay and minority owned bars. The GSBA (Greater Seattle Business Association) was originally a collection of gay businesses who united to fight the corruption of the WSLCB and the SPD.

"we have to enforce the laws" bullshit you fucking hypocrites. People are shooting up in public parks, dealing drugs, starting fires, robbing stores/houses/cars, and yet the SPD doesn't have the will or manpower to enforce laws. 4 of 15 bars were gay (27%). Less than 10% of the population is gay. You bet your fucking ass it was targeted. And a team of 10 people?! With flashlights?! Taking pictures?! Holy fucking shit. Wish there was some drag queens who would've taken them down like Stonewall. Outrageous. Next meeting is tomorrow and there is public comment. I think it will be a mob scene.

Seattle Times, 6/1/2022:

Seattle police’s sexual assault and child abuse unit staff has been so depleted that it stopped assigning to detectives this year new cases with adult victims, according to an internal memo sent to interim police Chief Adrian Diaz in April.

Seattle Times, 10/23/2023, with regard to armed robberies of students in Ballard:

[SPD’s] Weismiller said police have been in contact with the victims and that the department will provide additional police presence in the area when staffing allows.

Mayor Harrell’s Police Recruitment and Retention Plan, 2023:

Police follow-up investigations of serious crimes are essential for holding people accountable and improving long-term public safety. These investigations have been negatively impacted because of the need to transfer detectives back to first-response patrol units.

Yet in in 2024 Harrell and Chief Diaz are assigning cops to cite wearing a jock too close to a brewski.

This place is getting really stale with the bullshit.

So many good comments. You know things are fucked up when the Seattle Times writes basically the same article criticizing the police (quoting Dan Savage no less). Even Bruce Harrell was like, What the Fuck?

"The problem is that they had their bare asses hanging out, which is against the law."

Who gives a fuck. Seriously, someone driving way too fast, endangering your kid (or grand-kid) walking home from school, versus some dude with a tight ass exposing it in a bar that only those 21 and over can attend?

Priorities, assholes.

Just when you think the police can make a case for themselves, they do something really fucking stupid, validating every dipshit anarchist out there. Fuck the Police? Yeah, OK. This time. And the last time. Oh, and the time before that. But, you know, some of them are good, and want to do good things and criminals suck too ...

Come on cops, get your shit together.