Shutting
Following a November 19 shooting inside Capitol Hill’s Sugar
nightclub that left three people wounded, the club appears to be
closing down. In an e-mail to employees, Sugar’s owner, George
Foster, said he plans to “close the business… and put it up
for sale,” because he expects the city and Washington State Liquor
Control Board will shut him down.
The afternoon after the shooting, Mayor Greg Nickels issued a
statement calling for the liquor board to take “swift action” against
the club. Liquor board spokesman Brian Smith says the state is awaiting
the results of the police department’s investigation into the shooting,
but says that “any time public safety is at risk, it’s a major
issue for us.” Since August, Sugar has been
cited three
times by the liquor control board. Two of the three charges are
pending, but could lead to a 30-day suspension of the club’s
liquor license. JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE
Skating
Good news for roller-coaster lovers and Seattle skatepark advocates:
A consultant, John Sutherland, has been working to take over part of
Seattle Center currently occupied by Fun Forest amusement park when
Fun Forest’s lease expires in 2009. Sutherland says one of his top
priorities is finding a way to incorporate a skatepark into a
new Center theme park.
So far, the city’s attempt to replace SeaSk8—the skatepark
that used to sit just east of the Center—has been a debacle. The
site for SeaSk8’s replacement has been moved three times, and the city
council’s current proposal—to replace one of the Center’s
pavilions, just south of KeyArena, with a skatepark—has been
met with opposition from both skaters and Seattle Center
festival promoters. City Council Member Richard Conlin says he’d only
be willing to look at another site if skaters wanted to start the
relocation process all over again. Ryan Barth, chair of the parks
department’s Skate Park Advisory Committee, says that if there’s more
space available at the Fun Forest site, “there’s no reason
we
wouldn’t want to do it.” JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE
Sequestering
On Election Night, November 6, supporters of the doomed roads and
transit ballot measure held a gloomy gathering in a first-floor
ballroom at the downtown Westin hotel. Democrats and Republicans from
around the region, including King County Council Member Julia
Patterson, delivered concession speeches for the package. But one
prominent supporter was notably absent—Washington Governor
Christine Gregoire. Sources say Gregoire spent
the evening
sequestered in the Westin’s Presidential Suite, site of the
invite-only roads and transit afterparty later that evening. The
governor’s campaign office did not return calls about her
election-night schedule, nor about whether she had planned to emerge if
roads and transit had proved victorious. NANCY DREW
