Stinging Rebuke

Nine months after the city’s series of raids on bars and

nightclubs—code-named Operation Sobering Thought—City
Attorney Tom Carr’s office has yet to win a single conviction. Several
of the cases have been tossed out for problems with evidence, while
others have been bargained down to a slap on the wrist. The city
attorney’s office still claims the operation was a success, but several
attorneys representing bouncers and bartenders arrested in the raids
say the city simply gave up and settled a number of cases it knew it
couldn’t win. “They were aware there was some questionable legality to
their cases,” says Bill Bowman, who represented a bartender charged for
overserving at Tommy’s. In the end, he says, “I think they didn’t want
egg on their face.”

Last August, the city sent undercover officers into 15 bars and
clubs around the city in response to complaints about violence and
other mayhem associated with Seattle nightlife. Two weeks later, police
made a show of force—sending in shock troops to round up 17
bartenders, bouncers, and bar backs for allegedly overserving customers
and allowing minors and guns into bars. All told, the city filed
charges against 26 employees for violations of the state liquor
code.

Attorney David Gehrke—who represented an employee at Sugar
charged with overserving—says in 30 years of practicing law, he’s
never seen prosecutors so aggressively pursue charges for such
technically minor offenses. Generally, Gehrke says, offenders receive a
citation and a fine of $250 to $500, rather than a year in jail.
“People that get their second DUI don’t get that kind of time,” he
says.

But shortly after the initial shock and awe of the city’s $52,000
operation wore off, the city’s cases started to come apart.

Perhaps the most startling example of the operation’s sloppiness
comes from David Romano, a five-foot-eight Hispanic man who was
arrested weeks after the sting for allegedly letting underage girls
into Tia Lou’s in Belltown. Romano got off when prosecutors realized
they’d have trouble proving he was the same six-foot-two blond bouncer
identified in the corresponding police report. In another case, the
city attorney’s office sought a year of jail time for bouncer Daniel
DeLeon, charged with letting an undercover officer bring a gun into
Tabella in Belltown. It took a jury just 20 minutes to find DeLeon not
guilty.

Attorney Matthew Leyba represented DeLeon during his trial; he says
prosecutors ignored some evidence because they were too focused on
making an example of workers like his client. “In DeLeon’s case, there
was… some overzealous prosecution,” Leyba says. “It was a waste of
money [that] it had to go to trial.”

Surprisingly, prosecutors seem to agree. “We were all hyped up from
the chase,” says Derek Smith, the city attorney’s liaison to SPD’s vice
unit. “In the grand scheme of things, [seeking harsh sentences] was
probably unwarranted under the circumstances.”

Although the city has yet to secure any convictions—so far, in
addition to DeLeon, seven cases have been dismissed, four cases are
pending, and 14 employees have received “dispositional continuances,”
which require them to stay out trouble for one year—Smith, who
helped set up the raids, still believes that overall, the operation was
a success. He says he’s heard of nightclubs changing their
procedures—carding everyone who comes in the door, for example.
Although Smith says he doesn’t think raids are the ultimate solution to
nightlife issues, he says that’s all the city can do for now. “The
reality is, if you look at the problems where the bars are, this is a
huge [issue] for the city,” he says. “We’re doing surgery on a very
difficult situation with a hammer and a wrench. It’s going to be a lot
better next time.”

jonah@thestranger.com