History has bellied up to this bar

Seattle Times ^ | August 27, 2006 | Nicole Brodeur

[phantomworker]

It's just before 2 p.m. on a Thursday, and there's a line to get into the Blue Moon Tavern.

snip

As time goes on and Seattle's past is increasingly knocked down or painted over, places like this are looking less seedy and more romantic all the time. It may not have a kitchen and may need something close to sandblasting, but memories live here, in the walls and the echoes. And that should be worth something.

The place also features the distinct smell of irony.

Selling the Blue Moon was a last-straw decision by longtime owner Gustav Hellthaler, who refused to sign a Good Neighbor Agreement required by the city of Seattle before it would renew his liquor license.

Hellthaler said the Blue Moon had always been a good neighbor; employees and clients policed the place well. And it's not fair that the city be allowed to arbitrarily take away a liquor license without due process, he said. I have to agree.

Hellthaler would rather sell the place than bow to what one crony described as "putting you in a chair with a noose around your neck and promising not to kick the chair out."

But not signing the agreement meant no liquor license. And without that, who would buy the place?

snip

On Friday nights, a group of UW scientists calling themselves the "Sleaze Club" takes over the Blue Room. There's a euchre group. An opera group.

"The conversations that go on here ... ," Petra Hellthaler said, smiling. "From nuclear submarines to the poetry of Charles Bukowski to how to get the stains out of your laundry."

"Please have a sense of history," she said. "Because the Seattle I fell in love with is almost gone."

I'll drink to that.

[phantomworker]

Good Neighbor Agreement?

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0624/moon-carr.php

[sionnsar]

Thanks to phantomworker for the ping.

Say WA? Evergreen State ping

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[claudiustg]

Ah, drugs. This is in a city where a newspaper editorial praised the Taliban and expressed a yearning for a Taliban to police Seattle streets.

[phantomworker]

Looks like another nanny state 'thang'.

[freepatriot32]

ping

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"'Please have a sense of history,' she said. 'Because the Seattle I fell in love with is almost gone.'"

That's all too true for all of our socialist infested cities. :(

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[Gabz]

Nanny State PING!!!!!!!!!

[Madame Dufarge]

Nowhere in this article are the details of the "Good Neighbor" agreement described.

Isn't that whole crux of the thing?

What a badly written article.

Though, in my heart, I know it's just another assault on property rights.

Call me a cynic.

[phantomworker]

http://www.cpn.org/topics/environment/goodneighbor.html

http://yawp.com/ican/neighbor.html


What is a Good Neighbor Agreement (GNA)?
A Good Neighbor Agreement is an enforceable contract which details a set of commitments that corporation is required to make in order to demonstrate its accountability to the community. These commitments fill in the gaps of some environmental and economic development laws by addressing the needs identified by the affected employees and other community residents.

GNA's are tools for building accountability and trust between communities and local corporations while addressing real community needs that are unique to each situation, Typically, an agreement contains both specific commmitments (example: no polluting discharge to groundwater) and processes for continued oversight (example: oversight committee of community, employee and company representatives provided with funds for independent technical review). These agreements, also known as neighbor/labor or community/corporate compacts, can be won with broad community support. Below is an example of such an agreement won in California.

[Madame Dufarge]

Thanks.

I suspected that's what it was.

The "working class as a disease" ordinance.

[metesky]

Good Neighbor Agreements are simply a wedge by which the Prohibitionists initiate class warfare between the neighborhood bars and their own customers, now redefined by the Prohibitionists as CPIs, or Chronic Public Inebriates.

Be healthy and do as we say or else we'll deprive you, as the owner, of your living and throw a bunch of people whom we've already classified as useless drunks out on the street.

Never thinking of course that those CPIs are now on the street for everyone to see.

This happened on Cape Cod several years ago when a bar that catered almost exclusively to "lower orders" was pressured into giving up their license. At a town council meeting the owner simply asked where his clientele would go and was given another license.

[phantomworker]

Here's the GNA for Seattle. It's promoted by Democrats so there's something not right about it. Like the article said, it's like "putting you in a chair with a noose around your neck and promising not to kick the chair out."


http://www.cpn.org/topics/environment/goodneighbor.html

[Madame Dufarge]

It's promoted by Democrats

At one time, that would have been useful shorthand to me, but based on experience, it's lost its relevance. Too many "Republicans" have melded in.

Agreements are formally negotiated, though some remain voluntary and without legally binding language, while others are incorporated as a condition of formal permitting processes and can be legally enforced.

Cave to the Politically Correct de Jure dogma or die.

The March to Utopia can never end well.

[phantomworker]

Whoops, here's the link to Seattle's GNA.

http://www.metrokc.gov/dchs/mhd/cpi/gna.htm#gna

I understand what you are saying. The March to "whose" Utopia? Whose drum are we supposed to be marching to? I'd rather march to my own.

[Madame Dufarge]

The March to "whose" Utopia?

Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear.

The Leftist Utopia.

Whose drum are we supposed to be marching to? I'd rather march to my own.

Well, of course..

I just assumed that since this is a conservative website, that it was generally understood.

[phantomworker]

[Madame Dufarge]

I hope they're having a good time.

""Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper." .

Ben Franklin.

;-)

[383rr]

"Though, in my heart, I know it's just another assault on property rights"

I agree. It's the final step, and they aren't wasting anytime in taking it.