In King County Superior Court today, the Mariners made oral arguments for their lawsuit to block a Déjà Vu strip club from opening a half-block south of Safeco Field. At the center of discussion: a dispute over whether a 60-foot-wide sidewalk south of Safeco Field constituted a "park and open space use," which, under a 2006 city law, would require an 800-foot buffer zone from strip clubs. (The team and the public authority that runs Safeco Field also called three other nearby areas parks and open space, but they were barely discussed. I talk about them here.) Here's a picture of that wide sidewalk, which the Mariners call Safeco Plaza:

“Years from now, no one will remember a decision to put a strip club in Lake City,” said Stephen Smith, an attorney representing the public facilities district, the state authority that owns Safeco Field. “I can guarantee you that years from now, people will remember this…. Every day that a game is played, thousands of kids will be walking past.”

“I’m certain you have arguments that are very compelling regarding minor children,” said King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick. “But [the city council] chose not to put the buffer zone around churches, spectator sports facilities, swimming pools, and other areas where children congregate.”

Mariners attorney Melody McCutcheon argued that the 2006 law created an uncharted designation for “park and open space”—not just park, and not just open space, but a befuddling combination of the two. And the court had to sort this out. Moreover, she said that “any” park and open space use would trigger the buffer zone—and this sprawling sidewalk is sometimes used in ways that resemble a park.

However, plenty of spaces provide temporary recreation that aren’t parks or open space, such as car-free Sundays, when city streets are opened exclusively to cyclists for recreation. Would all of Rainier Avenue South be designated as a park and open space because it's used one day a year as a recreational open space? Or all of Fremont for the annual Fremont Fair?

Judge Erlick probed, asking if the the publicly owned Pike Place Market also qualified as a park and open space?

“I don’t know, your honor,” said McCutcheon. The Pike Place Market district is the city’s current hub for adult cabarets and zillions of kids seemed to go there every year, unharmed.

Pete Buck, representing Déjà Vu, contended that city law clearly defines parks and open spaces as those areas "permanently dedicated to recreational, aesthetic, educational or cultural use." Buck points out: “This is an area used for overflow parking." Indeed, the Mariners confirmed, the team uses the plaza for overflow bus parking during its 81 home games a year—meaning the area isn’t “permanently dedicated” used as a park. Indeed, the time when kids are most likely to be present—Mariners games—is the same time the Mariners actually use that site in a way dangerous for kids.

Meanwhile, the attorney for the city, Robert Tobin—whose job, in theory, was to reaffirm the city’s decision last fall to allow the strip club—was pathetic. He stumbled over words when addressing the judge, and, when asked the key question over how the sidewalk differed from Westlake Square Park, he failed. Westlake Square Park (not Westlake park by the mall, but a triangular red-brick mini-block of benches and a fountain) is a tiny little thing. Judge Erlick asked Tobin if he could distinguish the two. The obvious answer is that Westlake Square is a city-operated park, it is covered in benches, and is never used a pay-to-park lot by a private company. But instead he said, “I think they are similar.” Then he sat down. And then his phone rang. Electronic devices are to be turned off in the courtroom, so Tobin fumbled around in his bag looking for it, still ringing. But it wasn’t one of those phones that you turn off and it just goes quiet. Oh, no. This was one of those phones that plays a little song to tell you it’s turning off.

Erlick said he will take up to 60 days to issue a decision.