No problems with live music? There was once a place on First Avenue that actually had an outdoor stage, with live music starting at midnight every weekend. Condo owners in one building could have poured milk on them if they'd been so inclined. I was a block away and sadly didn't have the opportunity....but I went in and yelled at the staff once, and from then on they had security every night...

This lasted an entire summer. Residents who'd had many years of reasonable noise levels were faced with not being able to sleep until 2:30 two nights a week.

mhays- Sounds like you're talking about the former Mira in the Labor Temple. I recall the short-lived summer of mayhem surrounding that place. I'm not sure that it was a live band though, I think it might have just been a DJ or other amplified recorded music (not sure though).

At any rate, I have a hard time seeing how any clever new legislation/regulations will ever really resolve the issue of problem nightclubs. There is a certain population of thugs, thug wanna-be's and their hangers-on's in the general Seattle area. These people want to be able to party. Getting drunk in the club with your hommies, meeting girls, fronting and getting into some beef with your rivals is an integral part of this culture. That's not so different from any young people but some of them are genuine thugs and criminals who won't hesitate to start a gun fight. They latch onto some club or another for a time until the situation gets out of control and the city shuts it down (Larry's, Lucky's, etc). Then they move onto the next, which is starting to look like V-Bar in Belltown. As long as there are thugs who want to party it up in the club with money to spend, some club owner will try to cater to them.

If anyone thinks some new rules can resolve this problem of violent nightlife, they are mistaken. At best we can give police and regulators effective tools and with vigilance we can act quickly as trouble spots arise.

Yes, it was Mira.

There was definitely a band some nights. Hip hop nights were another matter. For three consecutive fridays(?), there was basically a riot on First Avenue from 2:00 to 2:30 am. I could hear the nucleus of the fighting moving from nearby to around whatever corner and back again. This covered all of First Avenue at times. Hip hop night ended after the third time. I never heard gunfire thankfully.

Now I live a block away, on the interior of a block, and it's blissful quiet.

I don't see Belltown as being "dangerous" like some people say. Hip hop night was an anomaly. But I agree we need better controls.

seems to me that with the Mayors encouragement of panhandling, cutbacks in police and elimination of parking, Seattle is discouraging night life or any other activity in the downtown.

There is obviously a huge contradiction between the City encouraging downtown living in condominium developments and a "24 hour downtown" that provides watering holes for hoodlums. Belltown may not be "dangerous", certainly not in the daytime, but people I have known who live in or near Belltown avoid the sidewalks after dark and I think for reason. If the City is going to get creative about closing times they could consider making some closing times earlier to avoid this crush of loud well-armed drunks but, in this article, "creative" means spreading out pain to later and later hours. I fail to see how that solves anything. A lot of money has been spent to make downtown a physically attractive and convenient place to live. I think that has to be the psychic starting point for resolving the conflicts. If a few bars go broke it's not the end of the world. It might be the beginning of the world.

Keith, Little old ladies are out at night in Belltown...any grown man that says that must be pretty skittish. Bar patrons and crime are problems but it's overblown.

I agree that there's a contradiction between being encouraging residential use and encouraging nightlife. Cities with smarter leaders solve this by establishing nightlife districts where noise regs are lax, and cracking down on noise in other districts where people live. In Seattle's case I'd suggest that we establish districts based on who was there first. Pioneer Square, the Stadium District, the south edge of Lake Union, Pike/Pine, and possibly a portion of Belltown would be good candidates that have been loud party areas for many years.

Former_Belltowner is correct in that the thugs will always be looking for somewhere to go. However, I disagree that nothing can be done about it. If a club becomes a magnet for violent criminals, it should also become a magnet for the police.

Unfortunately, with Tom Carr in office, the police refused work with clubs to arrest thugs. Instead, Carr played his endless and fruitless game of whack-a-mole, closing down one club while the growing number of problematic patrons simply moved to another one.

With McGinn and Holmes, perhaps now the police will start going after the actual thugs as opposed to the bartenders. To the extent that thugs gather in a few hot spots, it should make the cops' jobs that much easier.

As someone who was out partying most weekends through my 20's, I'm generally sympathetic to the nightlife scene and not keen to shutting the bars down to appease nimby's. I'm all for cracking down on bars that are hot spots of criminal activity and violence, or enforcing codes for amplified music audible outside the venue. I think most everyone can get behind this. But the where I think that leaves many neighborhoods unsatisfied is the general noise of the crowds in the streets and some of the obnoxious behaviors they engage in. I think you will find this issue in any nightlife area in any city. Other than having more cops present to check the worse excesses, I think you're always going to have some noise and obnoxiousness. Ultimately, there are many, many quiet neighborhoods in Seattle and it's surroundings. If this quiet is so important to you, then why locate to one of the few square block areas in the city that do have some nightlife?

Belltown has long had a rowdy scene on 1st avenue; my grandparents warned me about it when I moved to Belltown from their recollections decades ago. It just so happens that Seattle's first real dense, highrise condo community also arose in the same place. As a 25 year old single male in 2002, I largely chose living in Belltown BECAUSE of the good nightlife! Maybe as Seattle develops more dense neighborhoods (like S. Lake Union), prospective residents will have more choices to live a walkable, urban lifestyle without the loud nightlife tradeoff.

One other issue is the poor choices of developers and city zoning. Ballard Avenue and surrounding blocks have long been a commercial and light industrial area. There's always been a scattering of old fishermen's taverns, some of which still exist. As Ballard has gentrified, more bars catering to urban hipsters have opened in that area and in the past five years it has become quite a happening nightlife area. At the same time, a developer thought it would be a great idea to build a retirement home facing right down on this nightlife strip. Now the retiree's can call the police about rowdy bar patrons in an area that had previously had little to no residential use. It's too bad some of these folks are loosing sleep, but where was the sense in siting this project at that location (or renting a unit that obviously faces a bunch of bars)?

A good nightlife scene with its various flavors is indeed critical to a successful city. Seattle and it's surroundings have thrived from a steady influx of mostly younger, single, educated people and many of those people are drawn to areas with some nightlife. In addition, Seattle is right to want to promote and cultivate our live music scene. Seattle's music scene over the years has done more to promote this city and make Seattle known globally than any business. In my travels throughout Europe, when I mentioned Seattle, people said "ah, Nirvanna, Pearl Jam!" - not "Microsoft, Boeing!"

One thing to point out here is none of the problematic venues had live music. Of all the calls and complaints I fielded during my time in the mayor's office, I rarely if ever received a complaint about a venue with live music.

Most of the problems we identified were related to promoters who come into a club, promise the owner a crowd, and pack the place. Certain promoters were known around town for always bringing trouble with them, but if the money is good, it can be easy to look the other way..

What were they promoting?

Someone please provide more specific names of places, cover charge dollar amounts, occupancy numbers, arrests, prosecutions, and is this all leading to allowing some bars to stay open until 3-4-5am??