From the Jan 20 – Jan 26, 2005 issue

News

Whine List

Seattle School District Stalls Restaurateur, Neighborhood Redevelopment

by Kayte Mutrie

For over 12 years Lloyd's Rocket, a rusty, abandoned 1950s gas station, has sat empty on a triangular lot where Yesler Way, 12th Avenue, and Boren Avenue converge just southeast of First Hill, in a spot that slopes down toward the International District. Pizza Time, Saba Ethiopian Restaurant, and subsidized-housing complexes stand near the property, where steel frames that used to support gas pumps hover uselessly. Cigarette butts and empty cans litter a meager patch of grass, where scruffy men linger on the sidewalk. This is a place one might choose not to be after dark.

Local restaurant waitress Sarah Wilson described the area: "Drug dealers outside all the time."

However, things may finally be changing around Lloyd's Rocket. A coffee cart has opened alongside Lloyd's, and holiday lights are tacked up to the old Lloyd's sign--evidence that life could return to the 14,400-square-foot building.

After selling her family farm in Oregon where she grew up, Paula Carson saw Lloyd's Rocket as a diamond in the rough. In April 2004, Carson, who has worked as a merchandiser with department stores like JCPenney and Mervyn's, began negotiations with the Lloyd family to buy the property, valued at around $436,000 by the King County Department of Assessments, with hopes of building a restaurant. She set up the adjacent coffee cart and has already spent $42,000 reroofing Lloyd's.

"We were overjoyed when we heard what Paula was doing," East Precinct Police Department Lieutenant John Hayes says. "As police in the community, we like economic development. This land has been vacant for so long."

Squire Park Community Council member Bill Zosel agrees. "People were happy to see the property used again and particularly happy to see the plan would preserve the old building. Before she took on this project the site was collecting litter. Not the kind of place you'd necessarily want to walk past."

Everyone in the community, it seemed, supported Carson's plans. Except one neighbor: the elementary school located directly across the street. Although the Seattle school, Gatzert, approves the restoration of Lloyd's Rocket, it doesn't like the idea of a restaurant with a liquor license, and it's flexing legal muscle to prevent Carson from obtaining one. Carson wants to serve alcohol alongside family-style meals. Without a liquor license, she contends, her business will flop.

Ronald J. English, deputy general counsel for the Seattle School District, sent Carson a letter last August explaining the reason for vetoing the liquor license. English wrote, "Students walk directly in front of the business to go to and from home. The school is active well into the evening."

Seattle Schools Communications Director Peter Daniels told The Stranger, "Kids are bombarded with advertising--with liquor and cigarettes. It's tough for them to make good decisions. It's easy for students to see people leaving the place intoxicated. Plus, parents expect schools to be vigilant. That's pressure for us."

According to Washington State law, schools and churches within 500 feet of businesses have veto authority over liquor licenses. Carson's property is within 500 feet. Frustrated, she hired attorney David Osgood. He suggested a compromise: allow Lloyd's Rocket to serve alcohol after the children are done with school. Osgood says the school did not respond. (Neither English nor Gatzert principal Norma Zavala returned The Stranger's calls.) Voicing Carson's stance, Osgood says he'd rather see the restaurant thrive with a liquor license than have the building remain an abandoned eyesore. "There's a greater risk if the district kills the restaurant and Lloyd's becomes a derelict building again," he says. "In urban areas where there are competing uses, it doesn't make sense for a school to veto economic needs, especially when it's done arbitrarily."

Indeed, the school hasn't objected to other restaurants within a radius of 500 feet, neighbors say. Wilson says the restaurant where she waits tables is within 500 feet of Gatzert and still has its liquor license. Her restaurant has never heard complaints from the school, she says.

"No school-district representative has come to the meetings where Carson's plans have been discussed," says Squire Park's Zosel. "There are other schools in Seattle where businesses with liquor licenses are very close," he says, citing convenience stores near Madrona Elementary, and a PCC in West Seattle and Madison Market in the Central District that are near West Seattle High School and T.T. Minor Elementary respectively. "The school district seems to be assuming we can't act as responsibly other neighborhoods. Many people find that insulting."

editor@thestranger.com