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Lowering the Bar

Liquor Board Holds at Least One Gay Bar to a Different Standard

by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee

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Mark Kaufman

The Washington State Liquor Control Board is very close to clipping the Seattle Eagle’s wings. After receiving eight anonymous complaints in the last three years—alleging underage drinking, public sex, and other debauchery—and being slapped with two violations in the last year, the Eagle, a fixture in the gay nightlife scene on Capitol Hill since 1981, could be on the way to closure.

The Eagle’s last run-in with the WSLCB resulted in a written warning after undercover officers walked into the bar on April 19 to find a room full of hot, sweaty men in their underwear. Officers claim they spotted several men whipping their dicks out in a back corner and say they spotted other men giving handjobs and having sex in a swing on the bar’s upper floor. The Eagle, through its attorney, David Osgood, disputes those claims.

Although the Eagle only received a written warning for the incident, the bar has already received two written citations from the WSLCB in the last year. Two more, and the board could permanently revoke its liquor license.

In September, the WSLCB cited the Eagle after liquor agents photographed a man in a Utilikilt wagging his very small penis—the WSLCB provided The Stranger with a copy of the photograph in a public disclosure request—from the balcony. The Eagle’s management is contesting the penis-wagging citation, but isn’t fighting another given by officers who busted a man for giving a blowjob in the bar. Seattle police have also repeatedly warned the Eagle about playing porn on the bar’s TVs. [“Dick Detectives,” Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, April 16, 2009.]

The recent controversy at the Eagle certainly isn’t a complete shock. Previously, the bar received plenty of unwanted attention when it held an event called “Bareback,” a reference to unprotected anal sex. The Lifelong AIDS Alliance sent outreach workers to the bar to hand out free condoms, and The Stranger questioned the intent of the promotion [“Bareback Bucks,” Dan Savage, April 26, 2001]. The bar also has a reputation for being more risqué than other gay bars on Capitol Hill, with regular underwear nights and other events like a lesbian night called Vibrator.

These events have drawn the attention of the media, activist groups, and now the police. But it appears that a number of the complaints filed with the liquor board appear to be coming from an Eagle employee. “I am getting ready to quit,” the employee wrote in an e-mail to the liquor board on February 17. “If you were interested in some of the illegal activities in the bar, I would kindly share them with you.” Two months after receiving the e-mail, liquor agents showed up for the underwear party.

The situation raises questions about how far law enforcement should be going to “protect the public.” Although the WSLCB and police are technically following the guidelines set out by the state on bar conduct, according to Eagle attorney Osgood, the state is misinterpreting Washington’s “lewd conduct” laws.

State laws require bar employees to cover their breasts, pubes, and the “cleft of buttocks.” Staff also can’t “simulate, or use artificial devices or inanimate objects which depict sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, or any sexual acts which are prohibited by law,” although one bar in town with a mechanical bull probably violates at least three of those rules on a nightly basis.

Osgood says the liquor board officers are improperly using that law to crack down on all physical contact inside the Eagle, a double standard compared to the bumping and grinding that goes on in countless clubs in Pioneer Square and Belltown on a Saturday night.

“Two guys that could be hugging…[at the Eagle and] a police report gets written,” Osgood says. “I think the law needs to change with the times.”

This story has been updated since its original publication.