• Even more of the independent businesses and brick buildings that characterize the Pike/Pine neighborhood will soon vanish. On April 6, The Stranger confirmed that Eastside-based Madison Development Group—known for building apartments and giant grocery stores—purchased the block of properties that houses Bauhaus coffee shop and other tightly packed retail along East Pine Street and has plans to evict the tenants and begin building a seven-story structure in June 2013. As we've seen in recent years, this type of new mixed-use construction almost always displaces independent stores and replaces them with banks and tanning salons. ("There will not be a tanning salon," a spokesperson promised.) The land is squarely inside the Pike/Pine preservation district, which the Seattle City Council created to protect buildings like these, but the council failed in its goals, clearly.

• Three-legged sources say that the men's urinal on the second floor of City Hall has mysteriously been lowered exactly three inches.

• On April 4, the state liquor board agreed to let Central Cinema continue serving beer and wine while operating as an all-ages movie theater. The board prohibited minors inside theater rooms that served alcohol in a 2010 ruling (when multiplexes began installing sad little bars in their lobbies to boost sales) but only notified Central Cinema of its noncompliance earlier this year. After a tour of the family-friendly cinema and its business practices, the board agreed to make an exception to the rule.

• And now, four quick drug facts perfect for watercooler small talk: (1) Naloxone is an inexpensive, easy-to-use drug that can stop heroin, fentanyl, and other opiate overdoses. (2) Since June 2010, the nonprofit People's Harm Reduction Alliance has handed out 1,693 vials of naloxone. (3) King County Public Health only began handing out naloxone last month—sources say they've given out only 30-ish doses, but KCPH couldn't confirm by deadline. (4) As usual, PHRA is smaller, scrappier, and less robustly funded than KCPH, but way ahead of the curve.

• On April 9, the Seattle City Council voted to forward a seven-year, $122-million library levy to the August ballot. A property owner with a home valued at $300,000 would pay $45 per year.