Enforcement officers for the Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) have levied an administrative violation against the Eagle, a Capitol Hill gay bar, for allowing “lewd conduct” last month. On Saturday, October 23, officers Lorn Richey and David Stitt were conducting a routine inspection when they reportedly saw footage from the video Guys Gone Wild: Bad to the Bone.
This makes the Eagle the first bar in over a year—in the entire state—to receive an actual violation for lewd conduct, according to a records request filed by The Stranger. The violation can result in a $500 fine or a five-day suspension of the liquor license.
The state has charged five other bars with lewd conduct in the past year, but those establishments, none of them a gay bar, were simply issued warnings. Those warnings were given to bars that allowed, among other offenses, a male patron to rub a female’s crotch and women to engage in “caressing and exposing breasts,” according to records from the state. But the Eagle will receive a more severe penalty because it showed a video that allegedly included “a lubricated erect penis,” says Susan Blaker, who is in charge of liquor enforcement in King County.
But Eagle owner Keith Christensen says he didn’t know the video contained masturbation and he was trying to comply with rules from liquor enforcement officers. State agents have told him he may show nude images, he says, but not penetration or masturbation. So instead of the hardcore they may want, customers get slide shows of nude men and softcore videos like Guys Gone Wild.
Even the WSLCB makes it clear that Christensen has been trying to comply with state rules; Officer Richey has screened videos at Christensen’s request to make sure they are allowed, according to Blaker. (When asked if this meant state money was being used to pay a man to watch gay erotica, Blaker said, “No, he was providing technical assistance.”)
“We haven’t been showing porn,” Christensen says of his attempts to show erotic videos in accordance with state rules.
Guys Gone Wild is unquestionably softcore—out of 26 videos for sale on its website, only one makes so much as an allusion to masturbation. And the website’s description of the video that the Eagle showed that night, Bad to the Bone, makes no mention of masturbation. None of the previous videos from the franchise shown at the Eagle featured masturbation, Christensen says, so employees were just as surprised as liquor agents to see the masturbation footage.
Now Christensen is frustrated. Based on what his employees told him, he expected a warning—like other bars had received—not a full violation.
Moreover, it’s virtually impossible for bars like the Eagle to comply with instructions from liquor agents—who have approved naked stills and certain videos—without running afoul of a state law that technically prohibits liquor licensees from displaying anything depicting “pornography, or a sexual act prohibited by law.” Under vague state liquor rules, agents even have authority to penalize bars for employees baring butt cracks. In other words, officers employ wide discretion: In some cases, agents can slap a serious violation on a gay bar that’s trying to follow state rules (even letting the state screen videos for approval) while giving a bar where real-live breasts are exposed a mere warning.
But Susan Reams, spokeswoman for the WSLCB, likes this degree of discretion. She says, “It’s a good thing.” Asked whether discretion benefits law enforcement or licensees, she would only say, “An officer is going to be trained to make the best and fairest decision possible in the situation.”
Christensen’s employees told him the agents joked they had never even heard of Guys Gone Wild, just Girls Gone Wild. “For them to come in and ridicule the behavior of gay men is completely ridiculous,” he says. “I feel like this is an insult. They can do whatever they want; nobody is policing them.”
This incident is not the first time the Eagle and other gay bars have come under fire from law enforcement. The Eagle was most infamously warned by the WSLCB for an alleged dick-showing incident in September 2008 that took until this year to resolve. The Seattle Police Department conducted an anti-porn crackdown on Capitol Hill gay bars in 2008; the Eagle and R Place were both targeted. Officer Richey has issued two warnings (one for failing to meet food-service requirements, one for another alleged instance of lewd conduct) to the Eagle since 2008. But since then, Christensen has been trying to follow the rules from liquor agents. The Eagle can appeal the violation, which typically requires paying an attorney. But money is tight right now. Says Christensen: “I am barely keeping this thing afloat… it’s not a business that shows profit. I’m just trying to keep people employed until the economy turns around.” 
Wow. Things like this are exactly why I ended up leaving Seattle for less puritan pastures.
watch wang’s gone wild at home , no one is allowed to watch porn in a bar. do you think because you are a gay bar your are special? if you wanna be equal , be equal in penalty , as well as benefit. deal with it.
Eric you’re missing many points:
1. there ARE both straight AND gay bars in Seattle that have porn INSTALLED into their buildings
2. The Eagle is definitely getting singled out and the laws are not being applied equally, irregardless of sexual identity.
3. The WSLCB are saying one thing and then acting a completely different way
4. this action by WSLCB not only disrupts but also threatens The Eagle’s business, based on archaic laws.
5. Many other States do not enforce such archaic laws so ruthlessly.
Could Seattle use a 501c3 “Nightlife Legal Defense Fund” to protect from stupid enforcement that doesn’t do anything other than waste taxpayers money?
please find add’l ideas on this topic via Working Media here:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=13…
You can watch wangs gone wild all you want at home while also contemplating how ‘just deal with it and don’t try to change anything’ is a great way to live, I think there’s a lot of activists in the past few decades that never heard that, shame.
While you do that I’ll go purposely watch all my wangs in the eagle and work on loosening the umbilical cord strings around here.
Any bar that restricts patrons under 21, and has no windows onto the street (the Cuff, for instance) should be able to show hardcore porn of whatever persuasion. Let the market decide whether that bar has a taste for it or not, and if you walk into that establishment and are offended, it is your right to walk out again,
While we’re at it, let the strippers and the booze mix. It’s ridiculous that you can’t have a drink and watch a stripper.
Catalina for the free market? Will wonders never cease? Awesome!
This case is ridiculous on so many levels. If you think adult gay men consenting to watch a gay porn film is a threat to public safety, you have serious issues. If you just think the Eagle should “follow the law,” well, the law is horribly vague. And if you think we are needlessly advocating on behalf of gay bars, just look at the evidence.
All of these vice laws are absurd. Let bar owners police their private property as they see fit. Whatever you think, using government’s force to take action against peaceful “criminals” is wrong.
Intern dear, you are young. So young that when I first started commenting on this horrid thing we call The Slog, you were probably still being dis-matriculated in whatever grim home school or Christianist compound you seem to have emerged from,
So I am willing to “cut you some slack” , as the kids say, in your surprise that I would embrace the free market. But embrace I do, when the market is the best vessel. You see, I realize that different things need different vessels. To take it to your level, you certainly wouldn’t want to keep your Four Loko in the same jar as you do your Axe Body Spray, would you?
Nuance, you really should try it sometime. Perhaps when you’re older…….
The Liquor Board might as well select submissions for HUMP (2 out of 20 films this year were man-on-man)
@3 There is no such word as ‘irregardless’!!!
@9 How bout you nitpick 3’s word choice instead of actually addressing their ideas? That’ll show em!
Catalina, how I love you.
Discretion is great. It allows people to make the right decisions based on circumstance. If there has only been one lewd conduct violation in a year, this most certainly means most agents look the other way at the minor offenses they COULD be citing for. That’s good.
If only more civil bureaucracies allowed employees to make appropriate decisions instead of hiring gum-smacking dropouts who can’t find the proper citation in their thousand page rule book just to tell you NO.
Unfortunately it also allows a probably bigoted agent to act on the bigotry under cover of “doing the job” – probably what happened here.
Best to do get the WAC laws about liquor re-written entirely anyway.
Catalina, I want your babies.
@SEEDS #10 – using the non-word “irregardless” causes many people to ignore all else.
It is the grammatical equivalent of the N-word.
So what’s the big deal? No porn on the walls….Just go to the patio and watch the groups of guys there masterbate each other. That place is skanky…..Signed a Gay male.
@15
This is an obvious case of someone forcing ideals down the gay communities throat. Either they have a beef with the Eagle specifically or they chose it as an easy target.
The other issue that many don’t understand is that this is a start, they will grow this culture of policing until adult establishments resemble schools.
We are all free thinking individuals and we should have the option of whatever we like in a bar or tit show.
You might not care about the issue until they start policing your favorite bar.
A gay man……
It appears that the WSLCB and the city of Seattle officers have nothing better to do than to target gay bars as mentioned by one of the viewers.
As much crime as there is in this city, I truly dont see the reason why they make or have the time to do such.
Rather then it only be reasons of bigatry, I can’t think of any other. There is just too much of more serious real crimes that dwell within and around the city. (Pioneer Square)
Crack/Herione right in front of the bar” The Double Header” on 2nd and Yesler.
According to the bartender there, Police officers dont even monitor that particular area as well as other areas of Seattle.
Any and everyone who is not gay,however aware of gay bars are already familiar of what goes on in certain ones.
If for some reason, a straight/gay person walks in a bar that they are unfamiliar or uncomfortable in, like the one viewer replied, can walk out just as easily as they came in.
It’s just that simple. Gay mgrs and people should not have to convert to the straight life’s attitude, just because they are not comfortable with the activity that takes place in their space and enviromnent.
Because of the gay bar, such as the “Eagle” is merely targeted, the business has gone down and at some point will soon close down because of the harrassment from the WSLCB and WSP.
It’s all about respect. Gays are aware of what goes on in straght bars and if they want to support them,are not looking to seek out something offensive, when they already know what time it is before they make the efforts to go.
Straights are aware of this and I truly believe have it down packed before making any decidions to go into our gay bars. It’s the law makers who have the issue!
Let it go, and let people live and enjoy their lives in the world that we all live in and help pay state taxes to do such…
If your short term memories weren’t riddled with holes you might remember that The Eagle has been in this trouble before. The Eagle knows the rules and has repeatedly flaunted them and tried to use The Stranger to fight on their behalf – and they have.
If The Stranger staff had gone back further in their analysis of violations they would have found many straight bars that got violations, primarily for Flash-Friday type parties, for topless women in the bars, etc. None of those places are still violating the rules.
If you don’t like the rules, fine – get them changed! Every liquor control rule is revisited every few years and changed according to stakeholder (ie public) input. Every state law, well, you all know the public process so I won’t bore you.
I used to go to The Eagle because I liked the dark atmosphere and good, loud music. I left because of the sex in the corners, porn, shitty drinks, shitty employee attitude, and switch to dance-trance-faggot crap music. Oh, the shitty, nonsensical floorplan remodels and continually horrible bathroom experiences too.
No sympathy for The Eagle. They knew exactly what they were doing.
@18
I jumped and read your screen name ‘Seattle Has Shitty Fag Bars’. that blew your argument before i even dissected the self hate.
If you hate the gay bars in Seattle then open your own. This is an obvious case of a targeted business.
The liquor board are pent up frustrated mean spirited little twerps out to make a name for themselves. Its nanny state nonsense at its finest.
StoneWALL StoneWALL StoneWALL! 🙂
“But the Eagle will receive a more severe penalty because it showed a video that allegedly included ‘a lubricated erect penis,’ says Susan Blaker, who is in charge of liquor enforcement in King County.”
Ugh, this is that same institutionalized bias that permeates other areas like film ratings and television censorship. Normative male-identified sexuality (and the complementary lack of female sexual agency) means women are constructed as sexual objects while men are sexual agents. So naked women might not be “porn” because there’s no implicit “threat” of them exercising sexual agency (since their sexualities only exist in relation to a man’s and his desire), while naked (and especially erect) penises ALWAYS imply the “threat” of sex. Of course, all of this is patently unconstitutional anyway: that First Amendment was designed specifically to protect broadly-defined “speech” that most people DO find highly objectionable (it’s not necessary to protect the freedom of speech people DON’T find objectionable, after all), like pornography, despite some historic Supreme Court decisions.
“When asked if this meant state money was being used to pay a man to watch gay erotica, Blaker said, ‘No, he was providing technical assistance.'”
Um, but isn’t that actually “Yes” when the provision of the technical assistance involves watching gay erotica in order to evaluate it? Awesome!
Clubs in republican Florida have more freedom than here… Nightlife is a cruel joke in this town. Can’t smoke, can’t drink late, can’t drink and see nudity… really?! but somehow it’s ok to bicycle next to dump trucks, have crazy people yelling profanities on buses and bus stops, etc… what a stupid place where ppl work too hard and get too little…
So I was in The Eagle last night and guess what?
The Seattle Fire Dept decides to wave through like they own the place
…this complete bullshit
The article first says they expected a warning ‘like everyone else, then at the bottom mentions “oh yeah, they already were given warnings in the past, one was even for this same thing”.
This has nothing to do with the Eagle being a gay bar – any bar with repeat offenses after a warning will get issued a citation.
what I think we’ll see is any bar that supported I-1100 will be a target of WSLCB now. Anybody notice the minute 1100 was killed costs are skyrocketing?
For normal men, the prospect of screening gay porn, requested by the bar owner or not, is repugnant in the extreme.
I pity this hardworking official for his distasteful task.
And I’m glad that at least in one area of public behavior basic standards of appropriate speech and conduct are being enforced.
@26 ‘normal’ men?
Actually, “Seattleblues” for NORMAL men, homophobia is repugnant in the extreme.
as are you.
Do you have some issues you’re wrestling with, perhaps?(including some that might have you thinking about “wrestling” in ways that make you both uncomfortable and aroused?)
If 3% of the population choose to hop everywhere rather than walk, you would have no hesitation in calling this abnormal.
If 3% of the population decided to dress their children in untanned fur and send them to school, you would have no compunction in calling this abnormal.
When 3% of the population expresses a deviant sexuality at odds with every biological function and imperative, somehow you define this as normal, to be celebrated.
Homosexuality is a mental illness. It isn’t harmful to anyone other than the person who suffers from it. It shouldn’t be the subject of law, or the reason for discrimination. It shouldn’t ipso facto dictate involuntary treatment. It is not a sign of evil or immorality, anymore than any other mental illness. Persons who suffer from it are more to be pitied than censured. But it is an illness.
@ Seattleblues
Wow!! Your goddamn insane.
Decent article but Mr. Luby should have dug a little deeper.
never seen hardcore porn in a straight bar ever sorry. you go seattleblues , even though the stranger will ban you because you said anything anti gay , they are like that . freedom of speech only if you are gblt or what ever it is , everyone else is burnt . the only rag worse in seattle is the seattle weekly they’ve gone so far off the deep end it’s un recognizable now a day’s .
@ Eric Cartman AKA NWSL
I’m sorry they banned your other profile but you were damn annoying.
Seattleblues, it isn’t 3%, it’s at least 10%. Or, the same percentage of people who are left-handed, the same percentage of people who don’t learn from the way schools teach, the same percentage of people who have a reaction to a given drug that is exactly the opposite of what was expected (get hyper from a downer, for example), the same percentage of people who have a larger left foot than right (“normally” it’s the other way around), and so on, and so on.
When ten percent of a population is identifiably and similarly distinct from the rest of the population it is, by definition, NORMAL. That’s how we all end up unique: my cluster of differences is different from yours.
Personally, I’m just glad my cluster doesn’t include an inability to learn from evidence.
Homosexuality is not harmful to the person who “suffers” from it – homophobia is, to both the homophobics and the people they direct their homophobia at (who aren’t even necessarily gay). So _homophobia_ is a disease (and a potentially lethal one); homosexuality is not.