You just have to love the "liberals" here. Once again, they sing the song of neighborhood control, until the neighborhoods tell them to go to hell, at which point they show their true colors.

@1 - I don't know if you've ever been to or lived on Capitol Hill but, having lived there myself for decades, I think it's safe to assume that the majority of residents support extended bar hours. The group complaining does not represent the majority of the residents.

Right, #2. Capitol Hill is a bunch of drunks. Had to love this from The Stranger: The nebulous group of older, mostly white Central District and Capitol Hill neighbors who regularly meet with East Precinct officers to discuss crime ...

Hey Stranger, how many of your writers are white and over 30?

Something does "stink" in this article...perhaps it's the fact that The Stranger is really nothing more than a PR front for bar and club owners who keep it afloat via their ad revenues. The aging hipsters in its employ have a very clear understanding of the source of their pay checks. I would also add that it's pure speculation to imagine that "a majority" of residents of any neighborhood favor extended bar hours. I'd be happy to see it put to a vote, rather than via implimentation by council fiat. Would the bar and club owners agree to that? Why should they? Not so long as they can buy favorable coverage in The Stranger and make it sound like it's part of a vast movement of "the people."

"Knee-jerk" advocacy! Haha! That defines The Stranger, for sure. and their self-described "Advocacy Journalism". The Stranger editors one moment bitch about noisy leaf-blowers, and the next argue that clubs should be able to be "as loud as they want, with no limit". Perhaps it's that night-time noise is not a problem, when Stranger staffers are drunk and X-ing, but it is a problem in the morning when they are hungover?

Regarding noise, in 2009 a citizens group put together by the Seattle City Council, called the Nightlife Advisory Board, which included residents, club-owners, police, a noise expert, and others, recommended specific noise-level limits that would apply to clubs, as measured from the sidewalk outside of the clubs.

One-term McGinn, however, in a total abuse of power, issued Director's Rule 12-2011, which moves the measurement of those levels into your bedroom with the windows closed. In other words, what a legitimate citizen's panel deemed is an appropriate limit for the sidewalk outside of a club is how loud McGinn thinks clubs can be in your home.

For perspective: the levels allowed by McGinn's rule, incidentally, are 25X louder than are allowed under New York CIty's ordinance. Seriously - that's an indisputable, albeit uneblievable, fact.

McGinn's rule is illegal, though, because it actually allows clubs to be far louder even than Seattle's overall noise ordinance allows for any industry! It just needs a court challenge, which may soon get.

If the rule stands (it won't, once the City Council realizes the degree to which they've been duped by Bar Lobbyist McGinn), along with extended bar hours, we've got a serious problem: an unlivable city for anyone other than ravers and drunks.

Get active. Call your City Council members and tell them McGinn's 12-2011 is a serious over-reach that needs a smack-down.

Oh, and one more thing: Cienna: You're a racist bitch.

@ClubLover, thanks for the posting. It doesn't surprise me, but it's interesting nonetheless. McGinn is a corrupt weasel.