Until when on weekend nights?

Interesting map. Apparently, there is no Night Life to speak of in Ballard or Fremont.

More seriously, when did the residents of Belltown get to vote on being a "Designated Night Life Zone"?.

Doesn't rezoning require public input?

What @3 said.

AKA....lets make a few more bucks by arresting people for being drunk in public when they do the responsible thing and walk home.

"SPD will redeploy up to 25 officers from the department's anti-crime, traffic, and SWAT units to foot and bike patrols in crowded parts of Seattle."

Anyone else see the mixing of SWAT and Traffic Cops to combat downtown crime, a bad idea?

Also, dont traffic cops get paid less that a street cop or SWAT, simply because their daily job is less hazardous? Vast majority of them work during the day time (city parking is free after 8pm)? A move from day to swing and partial graveyard shift will yield a small bump in pay. If theyre working in hazardous area (drugs, thugs, drunks, etc) they will probably get paid more money to handle the crazies. I dont think the mayor is being 100% truthful in that this wont cost the tax payer extra.

Or is this one of those "It wont cost us a dime extra, because we already hired a dozen new traffic cops last month to handle the new parking rates as well as car boot enforcement changes".

man, you're so cynical, Kinison.

You make me look un-cynical. And that's hard to do.

@8
FYI: Traffic cops ≠ meter maids (And parking is free after 6pm in Seattle too, btw)

Point is to take them from sitting in their cars, eating donuts & waiting for you to run a red light, and get them walking the streets & interacting with folks instead.

You know... like human beings do.

Oh... and the meter maids work until 11:30pm in high traffic nightlife zones too, btw.

(Just park in a LOAD/UNLOAD zone on Capital Hill at 9pm on a Friday night if you need a practical, $57 lesson on that one!)

All humans move to the Designated Nightlife Zones between 8:14 pm and 1:24 am.

Please do not loiter...stay within the Zone parameter.

Violators will be exterminated.

Exterminated.

That is all.

Given the relative lack of military extraction operations required in the city, why don't we reassign all of the SWAT members year-round?

Cops walking around and on bikes is a good idea in an urban environment. I'm all for it, especially if we get to take the SWAT team away from their tank and machine gun polishing and make them get out on the street and see what the rest of the people in this town actually look like up close.
Can we just ask that they harass some of the daytime drunks too?

@11, Seriously. Take all those guys and put them to work tracking down burglars and car prowlers. If the cops really need to go bust into somebody's house, they can use the handguns and bullet proof vests they all have on every day. Stop being such pussies hiding behind machine guns when some dude doesn't answer the door because his TV is too loud.

Wonderful. Cops will be taken off checking out real crime and assigned to making sure young drunks don't fight with each other more than they already do.

@2, it says in the post--4:00 a.m.