In a long-shot move, the Seattle Mariners filed an appeal with the city hearing examiner yesterday to reverse a previous decision to allow a Déjà Vu strip club near Safeco Field. But, coming to the club's defense, the city’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) filed a counter motion today to dismiss that appeal, defending its decision to allow the club.

Illustration by Robert Ullman

In June, the Mariners made their first attempt to block the Déjà Vu, which is proposed 400 feet south of the stadium. The team argued that Safeco Field was actually a “community center” and a “park” where children congregate, which requires an 800-foot buffer from strip clubs under city rules. (The unstated implication by the Mariners is that naked women dancing a half-block away behind closed doors guarded by a bouncer would somehow harm kids.) Soundly rejecting the team’s claims—Safeco Field isn't a “park” or a "community center," but a "spectator sports facility"—the city issued a permit for Déjà Vu on December 4.

The team’s only option, it appeared, was to bite the boobie or challenge the decision in King County Superior Court. But King County Court judges have historically rejected appeals where the city has already interpreted land-use rules. So, yesterday—in an apparent fit of desperation—the Seattle Mariners instead filed a long-shot appeal to the city’s hearing examiner.

Appealing to the city hearing examiner is a desperate move, with dubious legal standing, and the Mariners know it. “It is possible that the Examiner lacks jurisdiction over this …” the Mariners acknowledge in their motion.

“If there is anyone out there who thinks the examiner may [accept the appeal], here is the motion to ask the question so we all know the answer,” says Melody McCutcheon, an attorney for Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson, who is representing the Mariners. So why would the team believe this would be in the hearing examiner’s purview? “Well I wouldn’t discuss our legal strategy with a reporter,” says McCutcheon.

In the motion filed yesterday, the team argues that the decision to allow the Déjà Vu wasn’t supported by factual evidence, the review didn’t accord to the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), and the permit for the strip club violated land-use and building code. But the city’s DPD motion to dismiss argues that the Mariners have no further legal recourse with the hearing examiner. Andrew McKim, a city land-use planner, says that because the strip club itself wasn't eligible for an appeal to the city examiner, the land-use interpretation that allows the club's permit is not eligible for an appeal, either. To override the city's decision, he says, the Mariners will need to "go to court."

The Mariners' spokeswoman hasn't returned calls to comment.