Gay bar raids, voter turnoutgate and a mistrial

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde with Erica Barnett, Sandeep Kaushik, and we've got not just one topic this week or two topics, it's three super hot topics. Issue number three. We'll start with issue number three.

[00:00:26] Seattle City Council President Sarah Nelson being called the C-word on social media, by which I mean of course conservative. Issue number two, a story about Republicans, Seattle City Attorney Anne Davidson and a mistrial.

[00:00:39] We're going to tell you more about that in just a minute, but first the number one issue this week, a raid on two Seattle gay bars by something called the Joint Enforcement Team that includes personnel from the state liquor and cannabis board, Seattle Fire and Police.

[00:00:55] We're starting there this week, I think you two jump in and tell me that I'm wrong. Just because this is so strange, like it's a headline ripped from the 1970s or 80s or something like that, 90s maybe 90s Seattle 90s. Erica, what's going on? What happened?

[00:01:12] Well basically, I mean and I will say also 2008 when we wrote about a similar sting in The Stranger when I was there. So basically the cops and the liquor control board go out periodically as part of this task

[00:01:25] force and sort of check out what's going on at various bars and clubs, issue citations for things like over service or there was a lot in this latest sting I believe for unlicensed vendors, things like that.

[00:01:39] But what's catching people's attention with good reason and was covered in The Stranger is that two bars, the cuff and the eagle were cited for loot conduct because there was quote unquote nudity. Apparently some guys were wearing jock straps and nipples could be seen.

[00:01:54] I mean it was considered and seen I think rightly so as targeting community that has been targeted many times in the past by these same types of raids but it does just feel like in 2024, I mean it's horrible anytime, but in 2024 I think that there is just like

[00:02:15] really broad consensus now that what consenting adults do in a bar that is or a club that is like where that type of activity occurs or whether it's nudity or whether it's people having sex there. I mean honestly who cares?

[00:02:31] And I think that when I say who cares, I represent the public. So Adi, we need you to defend the joint enforcement team. I'm not defending the joint enforcement team on this one.

[00:02:44] I mean there's been a question about whether it was a raid or as Erica says it was a kind of routine inspection but nonetheless, I mean this was a situation where you have like a group of eight

[00:02:57] or nine, ten cops and liquor control board enforcement officers and others coming into these gay bars and then taking like shining flashlights and taking photos of people because they're in jockstraps or whatever, like some bartender has an exposed male nipple god forbid.

[00:03:15] Like you know and that does seem incredibly bizarre that that's happening in 2024. I think Erica is absolutely right about that and what it really reminds me of is what Seattle was kind of like back when I moved here 20 plus years ago in like 2002

[00:03:34] when Seattle really was that kind of old Seattle kind of provincial pinch face prudery was like sort of the the the zeitgeist of the day. It really was Mayberry with high rises and the arguments we were having were things like

[00:03:50] oh my god the teen dance ordinance, god forbid the teens. The four foot roll in steps in step clubs. The one year strip club moratorium that for some reason had gone on for 17 years right to get renewed

[00:04:04] every year or the four foot rule or no Sunday liquor sales because you know god forbid what if somebody shows up at church drunk like you know so he gets a liquor on something you know and

[00:04:15] that was Seattle like like you know 20 years ago and all of a sudden I think there was some kind of like cultural time warp at LCB or SBD or wherever it was and these guys go in there

[00:04:27] and start yeah I don't know like acting like gay guys hanging out in a gay bar doing gay guy gay bar stuff is somehow like lewd conduct and we've got to like make a big stink

[00:04:41] about it which obviously has backfired and created a huge uproar as well it should and I think embarrassing and I think there's talk that LCB is now going to pull out of this joint

[00:04:52] task force and yeah the other thing I will say about this is I heard about this from our mutual former boss Dan Savage who pinged me last Sunday right he was the editor of The

[00:05:04] Stranger American I were we're there together and and Dan was like this crazy raid and how is it that we're down like hundreds of cops and yet they have like plenty of manpower for

[00:05:15] teams to go out to like raid gay bars and you know I think that's well and your question yeah and I I think you know well first of all I mean the fact that the police are involved in this I mean

[00:05:26] absolutely that was the point I was gonna make is they're they're constantly saying that they can't respond to priority one 911 calls in time but they do have time to do this kind of stuff

[00:05:35] and I think that you know if your concern is with enforcement of other laws like you know over service and DUI like there are ways to go after those things without this this stupid lude law

[00:05:46] you know which which shouldn't be a law anyway I'm going to be writing next week about a case that involves some stings that the police have been continuing to do up on Aurora and I mean

[00:05:57] I don't know the exact price tag on those but you know their prostitution stings where they go up and they have a cop you know trained to pretend to be a sex worker and stand out

[00:06:08] there and you know try to elicit customers and you know and then there's like teams that are you know surrounding them and watching and you know oh no it's like a dozen cops all to nail like

[00:06:19] you know potentially one guy on a misdemeanor charge that you know has a fine of up to a thousand bucks I think that it's just a real another example of real misplaced priorities issue two

[00:06:32] actually this was issue three but let's make it issue two Seattle city council president Sarah Nelson pilloried on social media it gets us into one of our favorite topics which is

[00:06:44] definitions and words and that sort of thing and and actual policy Erica tell us a little bit please about well what Sarah Nelson said and what she's being called and why yeah well I will tell you

[00:06:56] what the stranger said Sarah Nelson said I mean they quoted the little tiny snippet that they pulled out of her statement correctly she said that she has strong concern about a pair of bills

[00:07:07] that would among other things change our elections to even your elections local elections are currently in odd years and and she made a comment about voter turnout does not necessarily increase awareness of local elections greater turnout doesn't necessarily mean a better informed public

[00:07:26] yep so there's a story in the stranger about this saying that she opposes voter turnout and she wants you know to suppress voting and keep people from voting and this is all based in

[00:07:36] efforts to suppress you know people of color and women from voting in the past and it's uh it's a voter suppression effort and she wants that because she is conservative you know I mean the stranger like literally went on I mean you know like what's next literacy tests

[00:07:51] you know and it's a very long article extrapolating from this quote so the rest of the quote was actually about an argument against even your elections it is quite common that Sandip has made

[00:08:02] which is that people are not going to pay as much attention to the bottom of the ballot so what she continued to say was that the issues that affect people's lives are things that they deal with

[00:08:13] at the dais and she's concerned and now I'm quoting that there will not be time or there will not be interest in hosting all the forums that my colleagues attended last year she expressed

[00:08:23] concern about what the media will be interested in with so many other you know more high profile races up the ballot and she said that that the interest in local candidates and down ballot participation hasn't really been examined and that is again like that's that's kind of the

[00:08:39] the the Sandip Kaushik argument in a nutshell you know if people have these giant ballots where it's like the president congress you know all the state elections all the legislative elections and then you finally get down to these down ballot races it's going to be

[00:08:54] hard according to this argument to learn enough about them to even get all the way down the ballot to vote for them and she articulated it clumsily but at no point and I watched this

[00:09:06] meeting at the time which was about a week and a half ago at no point did she suggest in any way other than that little snippet taken completely out of context that she supported

[00:09:17] voter suppression I mean it's like a ludicrous in my opinion interpretation of what she was saying so it went viral on social media and you know the Washington state democrats issued a statement

[00:09:31] about it and you know it turned to this whole thing but of course it's like for me as a reporter I'm like go and watch the clip it's like a minute long and decide for yourself maybe I'm wrong

[00:09:42] but you know again I was at the meeting I've watched it several times since and I don't think that's what she was saying is this going to be one of those episodes where we end up with a rare

[00:09:52] another moment of agreement here Sandeep Kashi I was gonna say like Erica's right I have made this argument before but of course everybody knows that I'm a right-wing republican and you know

[00:10:03] closet mega freak too right I mean like Erica I went and I I pulled the quote and I listened the quote and I gotta say and I mean I think we should just say it straight up like I think that

[00:10:17] the the stranger did a really bogus hit piece on Sarah Sarah Nelson that completely mischaracterizes as Erica says the argument she was trying to make she wasn't making an argument for voter suppression there is a legitimate debate to be had about whether we should have

[00:10:34] municipal elections in even years and there are arguments on the side of of saying hey if we do them in even years turnouts going to be higher there's greater public participation that's a good thing that's justification enough to make this switch but there's also a legitimate and plausible

[00:10:50] counter argument to that there are actually several counter arguments but but the main one the one that Sarah was making and as Erica said one I have made in the past and I think is

[00:10:58] absolutely true is that there is a real danger that these lower down ballot races these small you know more local municipal elections will get lost in the shuffle right now in odd years when

[00:11:10] there's a mayor's race or just last year when we had these city council races there's an enormous amount of media attention public attention Sarah's right that there's all these forums and opportunities for the public to hear about local government and how it's working and to

[00:11:29] get educated and make decisions about who they want to support and when you do that in a year where you've got a presidential election and a really high profile gubernatorial election where both sides are spending millions of dollars where you've got a slew of legislative races some of

[00:11:46] them very very hotly contested I think there is a real risk that these these races will kind of fall off the radar screen they won't get a whole lot of attention the people who have you

[00:11:55] know kind of voters who are busy and have limited attention spans aren't going to focus nearly as much on these races because they've got other things other races that they're going to pay attention to and so Erica do you and Sandeep then agree with Socrates

[00:12:09] here who basically said only educated people should be able to vote I'm gonna I'm gonna play this stranger role you know it's kind of that's what you're applying here we you know the better educated better informed public shall vote those misinformed miscreants should be kept away

[00:12:22] I mean I'm being a little bit funny here but you know increasing turnout is an end in itself Sandeep Kaushik made the argument very nicely well I mean I feel like we've had a couple

[00:12:31] of episodes about this already so I don't want to belabor the the actual underlying argument that you know we've had many times before in will again but I mean you know why is it better to have better more turnout I mean because that is democracy and

[00:12:46] you know I don't think you have to be like tremendously well educated even on local issues to cast a ballot with some you know understanding of which candidate of the two you prefer right I mean you can you don't need to know every single person's positions on

[00:13:02] you know how they would fill potholes or you know what type of progressive tax they support if any you just need to know do they support progressive taxes do they support the other

[00:13:12] things that I support you know and that's that's really enough like I don't think that voting is you know it is a consequential act but it's not one for which you have to your

[00:13:21] or should have to go to school and spend hours and hours getting educated but I don't think anybody in the modern world is actually making or at least well I certainly in the modern world people are making that argument absolutely I think in this

[00:13:34] incident no one is making that argument Sarah Nelson is not making that argument she's not supporting literacy tests and and I think like you know I wanted to just just say that like

[00:13:45] one of the things that that the stranger and a lot of folks on the left have cited I think accurately so is that there was Shama Sawant derangement people just went crazy like couldn't

[00:13:56] think about anything else like if Shama Sawant's name was mentioned or a policy of hers was put in front of them and you know and just like the existence of Shama Sawant just outraged

[00:14:06] some people in her tactics right and so they couldn't think clearly about her and I would submit that there is also Sarah Nelson derangement happening you know I think there are very good

[00:14:16] reasons there are a lot of things that Sarah Nelson supports that I do not support and things that she opposes that I support and you know we just I don't agree with her on a lot of policy

[00:14:27] stuff personally but I think we have to have a little bit of you know a sanity check here and sort of say like well what are some of the things that we can legitimately criticize her for

[00:14:38] you know if your job at The Stranger is to be a critic and just to constantly rail on Sarah Nelson and everybody else on the council like look I just there's going to be plenty of stuff in

[00:14:49] the real world and you know and I I just think like if this is the kind of coverage we're going to get it's going to be Sarah Nelson derangement for years and after Sarah you know it's going

[00:15:00] to be Bob Kettle derangement or whatever and I'm all for criticizing people who have terrible policies or bad ideas but I'm more interested in policies and ideas than like gotchas based on a snippet of a sentence taken out of you know a minute or two long quote.

[00:15:16] What we've seen in the last couple of weeks I'm really fearful that the collectively that the the Seattle left is going to have an aneurysm in the next six months like the level of freak out over every little thing some of them completely manufactured like this Sarah Nelson

[00:15:32] controversy is just spectacularly like kind of off the charts are they going to be able to sustain this level of complete you know psychic meltdown for and for how long without doing damage to themselves I don't know. I liked Erica's way of framing it because there was demonization

[00:15:48] of someone whatever you thought of her there was I love it someone derangement syndrome that's just so that's such a funny way to put it again and and you know you get this I mean it is politics

[00:15:59] right you demonize Nancy Pelosi you demonize you know the other side or whatever but like Erica says demonize fine but do it like based on evidence there's plenty of evidence like

[00:16:09] I don't even yeah I mean I don't think you should demonize anybody I think you should say this policy is shitty and I don't like it and here's why. I mean the left I think Erica's pointing the left

[00:16:18] wants to pick a fight with Sarah Nelson they have plenty of ammo right I mean you know fake positions that run very counter to a lot of the positions of the of kind of left progressives

[00:16:29] in Seattle and those are legitimate topics for them to have a bone to pick with her about like this was just bullshit. As a member of the progressive left I look forward to debate

[00:16:41] actual policy with you but I'm glad that we agree on this one. All right issue three our final issue Sandeep Kashik Seattle city attorney Ann Davison story in The Stranger the headline

[00:16:54] something like a mistrial for the stop the sweeps protester who was charged with standing on an RV for 12 minutes what's this story all about why did you want to talk about it.

[00:17:04] Well I'm so again we're going after the account that was published in The Stranger here so my caveat here is I'm going off of this account which was that there wasn't a typical kind of encampment

[00:17:14] cleanup including the cop showing up and telling a woman who owned an RV that she had to move the RV. She asked for more time saying she had a flat tire and you know someone was going to bring

[00:17:26] her a tire and she just needed a few minutes they initially said they were going to give her a few minutes but then you know some more aggressive cop came along and said time's up or essentially

[00:17:37] and you've got to take all your stuff out of your RV and we're towing it and rather than let it be towed up one of the stop the sweeps protesters climbed up on top of the RV as some cops

[00:17:48] tried to keep him from doing so he kind of slithered out of their grasp and stood on top of the RV for 12 minutes pissing off the cops below you know as they made efforts to dislodge him and

[00:18:00] as a result of this he was prosecuted and the city attorney's office brought him to trial in municipal court and it was a three day trial and at the end of it he was not acquitted

[00:18:13] but it was a mistrial there were there were six jurors and apparently four of them wanted to quit and two of them wanted to convict that's what the stranger account says what happened

[00:18:22] and the and the argument I think from the stranger in the left is that this was an abuse of resources and really they come out flat out make the claim that this is really an attack on

[00:18:34] the homeless and you know the evil city attorney who hates the poor and the marginalized was was misusing city and excessive use of city resources to make a right-wing political point

[00:18:49] and punish the these heroes who were trying to stand up for the homeless that was the the argument right and and I should add that that once the mistrial happened within about a day the city

[00:19:02] attorney announced that she would not be be uh bringing the case again so they dropped the charge I mean it is it is true that a three day trial for a misdemeanor charge is uh you know almost

[00:19:16] inevitably like excessive you know in this case I mean it is hard to look at the facts of the case and not go well why did Anne Davidson care so much about this and I don't think you have to use

[00:19:27] words like evil republican city attorney to to question you know whether this was in fact a you know a weird political stunt and you know I would just point out as you were talking about this

[00:19:39] guy's as you put it slithering out of the cops hands Sunday um you know it occurred to me that gosh you know we have we have a history of protesters sort of standing their ground and

[00:19:52] refusing to move and when it's for a tree like the tree that people climbed and were living in and you know they they gave themselves cute names and were up in this tree in northeast Seattle

[00:20:04] trying to prevent a development from happening for days and days and days on end we think it's cute the media portrays it very sympathetically and you know everybody goes hooray when the tree is

[00:20:15] saved as a result of these um these protesters standing firm and here's a guy who's on uh an rv for 12 minutes and you know that suddenly is a matter of such great city concern that it's

[00:20:25] worth you know in in paneling a jury and bringing them to municipal court and you know taking the city attorney's time in order to prosecute this guy and I think it's I think it's telling that this is the

[00:20:38] priority for the city attorney given that one of the constant complaints from the city attorney's office is you know they can't get to their entire caseload and their backlog because they can't hire enough attorneys and you know they got a 20% raise for all the prosecutors last year

[00:20:53] might have been in 2022 but um this is just kind of this constant complaint along the lines of the cops complaint and you know I think it's telling that this is what they want to use that extra money

[00:21:04] and those extra prosecutors on as pursuing cases like this. I would really like to be in a position where I'm totally disagreeing with Eric on this one but I actually I kind of can't if the

[00:21:14] circumstances of this case are as portrayed and again we're I'm getting this out of the stranger's characterization of it so which I don't quite completely trust here but assuming though the

[00:21:29] facts is presented are or those then I do have to say that I agree it's weird that they made a decision to to to prosecute this case and um and I'm kind of surprised that that was the

[00:21:42] decision that they made and I'm not all that surprised that it ended in a mistrial. So I'm look I'm pretty surprised that they brought this case. I will say there is a broader contextual thing here and I will repeat a thing that you've heard me say before

[00:21:56] and I think is this case sort of highlights which is that you know it's not 2020 in Seattle anymore right and I do think there has been a a a change in public mood about some of these

[00:22:09] disruptive protests we just saw that that protest that shut down I5 a couple weeks ago for like five hours right and um and the Washington State Patrol kind of let it play out and I5 was

[00:22:21] shut down for a long time uh and there was a lot of blowback that that the state patrol got for not intervening and reopening I5 and ending the protests and arresting people they didn't do that

[00:22:32] and so I do think that um the vibe's different right now and maybe that's what sort of well clearly not that different well well because it was a mistrial maybe the city attorneys

[00:22:43] making this decision to prosecute like I said I don't think this in if we understand the facts of the case was a particularly good decision you're right I don't think the circumstances of the case

[00:22:54] really made it seem like this was all that terrible behavior and you know blah blah blah like and so I think a jury of Seattleites more than a majority of them were like this seems like penny anti-ticky-tack bullshit and I'm not gonna vote to convict right like um

[00:23:12] and and I and I don't really disagree with that if if the facts are as a left I well I just you know I I just have to point out that Sandip is evading the luma issue why weren't those people

[00:23:23] arrested you have luma derangement syndrome I was gonna accuse you of having luma deranged but they were those protesters they're they're sitting up in a tree I mean one of the one of the justifications according to the story was that you know this that this protester

[00:23:37] was endangering himself because the the rv was unstable and here are like protesters who are living in a fucking tree and everybody is just cheering them on and doing these these stories about droplet and droplet too when they're adorable effective you know uh protest for this for

[00:23:57] this fucking tree I'm sorry yes yes no proportional things I I think I'm gonna come right out and say it people are more important than trees and this person was trying to protect somebody's home the

[00:24:08] death penalty for hippies and trees I'm all for it all right we'll leave it there that's it another edition of Seattle nice I'm David Hyde she's Erica C Barnett he's Sandip Koushik our

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