Doesn’t bode well for “Space Needle thinking”: Good morning, and happy New Year. If you somehow missed the online roasting of Sunday’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display, our City welcomed 2024 with foggy fireworks and a show of 500 drones. Some people say we should cancel our “New Year’s at the Needle” event because of the consistently terrible and foggy weather in January, but I appreciate that we start every new year by humbling ourselves and saying, “Hey, we’re Seattle, we’re gonna be bad at stuff.”
The space needle show is a disaster lol pic.twitter.com/fie8T4DmCK
— Dae (@daeshikjr) January 1, 2024
Speaking of weather: Rain today, mainly after 1 pm. High of 47 degrees and mildly windy, but for the most part it’s just the city’s signature steady drizzle.
Welcome to our new city council: Five fresh faces join the Council today at its first meeting of the new year. The council members must elect a new Council president and discuss who should replace Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, who plans to resign her seat today to take up her new position on the King County Council.
New year, new Revised Code of Washington: Some new laws kicked in January 1, according to the Seattle Times, including a state-level ban on employers testing for marijuana during the hiring process, a 10-day waiting period to buy a gun, and stricter punishments for street racing. If cops catch you going fast and furious, they’ll impound your vehicle for 72 hours for a first offense, and on a second offense you’ll literally forfeit your car.
Highest minimum wage of any big city: Seattle’s minimum wage increased to $19.97, and that means we lead the pack among major cities, according to KUOW. Sounds good until you realize that full-time work adds up to about $3,000 a month before taxes, and that the median rent in the city is $2,000.
Not to shit on the progress, but without serious rent controls and affordable housing, it’s all too little, too late. $19.97 per hour might be the highest minimum wage in the nation, but it still won’t get you a studio apartment in Seattle. https://t.co/UFH1S0sJmw
— Samantha Jackson (@skjxsea) January 1, 2024
Events this week: If you’re looking for something fun to do this week, we’ve got 32 options for you. I personally want to check out the La Galette des Rois 2024 in Belltown. I think I have Willy Wonka brain because all I’ve wanted lately is to open up some sort of food item and find a prize inside. A galette with a hidden trinket inside that designates me queen for they day scratches that itch.
Also, don’t forget to take our sex survey. The deadline to submit is January 13, so hop on and tell us about your kinks, your illicit affairs, and share the best bangers to bang to.
Check out our top stories of the year: Our most-read stories this year include a slur-hurling cop, the Bartell Drugs apocalypse, city workers calling newly elected Council Member Maritza Rivera a bad boss, and Seattle’s most expensive Taco Bell. Catch up on what you missed last year before the holiday news lull ends this week.
Jet in Tokyo bursts into flames after crash: A Japan Airlines plane collided with a Coast Guard aircraft Tuesday morning, causing the Japan Airlines Airbus to burst into flames. All 379 passengers and crew on the Airbus escaped the blazing wreckage, but five members of the six-person crew aboard the coast guard plane died as a result of the crash, according to Reuters.
Cyber kidnapping of Chinese foreign exchange student: Search and rescue teams found a Chinese foreign exchange student camping alone in the Utah mountains Sunday. Apparently, law enforcement has tracked a new trend of people threatening foreign exchange students, forcing them to isolate and send photos making it appear the kidnappers have taken them hostage. Then the kidnappers extort money from their families abroad, according to NBC News. In this case, the student’s family sent $80,000 to pay a ransom.
Someone possibly tried to SWAT Maine’s secretary of state: A day after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s presidential ballot, someone called the cops to SWAT her, meaning they reported a fake crime hoping to draw a big, scary police response, according to the New York Times.
My resolution: I rang in the new year munching on dumplings, scrolling, and feeling smug that I had the option to go to a house party but chose not to. Anyway, I saw someone posted The Mountain Goats song “This Year.” A classic. Enjoy, and here’s to hoping we all make it to 2025.
“Not to shit on…”; proceeds to shit on. Rent Control in WA is a pipe dream, “Samantha Jackson”.
I know TS hates Sportsball, but would it kill you to mention that the Huskies won a crazy thriller and are playing in the National Champeenship Game next Monday?
@1 One last hurrah for the Pac-10.
Even though I’m more of a Wazzu fan, go Huskies!
Getting everyone out of a plane that’s blazing even before it stopped was fucking amazing. That is all.
The Seattle midnight countdown is a cult classic! Look forward to the fumbling small town show every year.
And yeah, the UW football win is a big deal, and a bright spot in Seattle sports!
And @1 is right. Rent control won’t help here. More housing will help here. The good news is that the biggest factor discouraging people from providing housing at the low end of the market is now off the Council. Let’s get started on repealing some of the more idiotic city ordinances.
UW playing for a national championship for the first time in 30 plus years seems like a pretty glaring omission as does not even bothering to mention where the crash occurred, Japan isn’t a city.
More housing is the solution.
heart-stopping
Huskies: Stomp
them Wolverines!
professional
‘Sports’ by
any other
name
let’s
Hope
they like
Doctors Unionize.
thank You
Kshama!
Happy
Trails!
Curious how the “aiding and abetting” part of the car forfeiture law works, if a teenager get’s mom’s car seized, what is the due process for her to get it back? There is a a pending Supreme Court decision on asset forfeiture, but conservative courts tend to be very pro forfeiture.
“Seattle’s minimum wage increased to $19.97, and that means we lead the pack among major cities, according to KUOW. Sounds good until you realize that full-time work adds up to about $3,000 a month before taxes, and that the median rent in the city is $2,000.”
From where came the expectation a person could live independently in a major city on minimum wage? I’ve always earned more than minimum wage, and during my early years in Seattle, I had flatmates and housemates. Only after working for years in a union-represented job could I afford a place of my own — and that was over twenty-five years ago, when studio and 1br/1ba apartments rented in Pike-Pine for $500/month.
Now that Sawant is off the Council, the Stranger should stop swilling her Trotskyite Kool-Aid, and accept reality.
Aside from any snark about Sportsball, you’re going to get lots of high school athletes from those red states wanting to come to our blue state to play for University of Washington!
That’s where the Stranger come in – to introduce them to marijuana, pro choice, and all those other things that make our West Coast living! Look out frat row!
The sex survey would be better if we could add our own input, instead of answering whatever weird SurveyMonkey questions the staff gives us.
Just one example: Years ago, I fucked my married, pregnant roommate, but there’s no way of tallying this.
Also, question 36: “Do you have an STI?” Somewhere close to 90% of sexually active humans have been exposed to HPV, but for the vast majority our immune system clears the infection and there are no medical issues.
Also, who TF is Jeremy Allen White, and why should I care?
Also, GO HUSKIES!
Is that 10 day waiting period on top of the 14 days (or more) often takes to get background check results?
Not that it matters. The criminals will still be buying guns on the street without going through all that legal stuff anyway.
Be glad they went ahead with the fireworks at the Needle. Remember when they cancelled the 2000 show after the feds busted that fella with the car bomb.
@11 — good
one Cap’n.
@15
we’ll need to
turn ’em all into
Gay Kkkommenists too
@16
that sounds like
one Crowded boudoir
maybe look for it next year.
@11 Um, ok.
Born by one, grew up next to the other. Have friends and family in both places.
Head to head, always WSU, but I will root for UW over any other Cali or Big 10 team (Stanford is ok, they smrt…), especially with the demise of the Pac-10.
And no, I will not refer to them by their current (temporary?) conference names.
Go Dawgs! WooHoo!
You’re smug about bailing on spending an evening with your friends? What a weird way to announce you don’t like your friends. Sure, going out on NYE is exhausting and you won’t catch me anywhere near a club or any place that charges a cover for the night, but I had a blast going to a house party with some of my dearest friends.
@17 Of course they will. That’s not the point of these laws. No one disagrees that in this country guns are easy as fuck to get one’s hands on, and thanks to the Supreme Court (Thomas especially) that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Waiting periods, background checks and other modest roadblocks are valuable because they discourage the marginal cases — the first-time impulse buyers freaked out by Fox News scaremongering, the pissed-off gambling losers and jealous lovers, the would-be vigilantes, the momentarily insane. Statistics consistently show that such measures do reduce the overall number of shootings and thus they are well worth the effort. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
@24- agree on the tipping situation. 20% is more than enough except in extraordinary cases. And the workers in question are far higher paid than they used to be- when the person behind the counter was making maybe $10/hour, there was no question tipping was warranted. But things are changing.
Our tipping practices came from a time the American system allowed restaurants, coffee shops, etc to avoid actually paying their employees. Now that we’re getting rid of that archaic system, time to move away from the tipping system.
The people programming those screens need to be keelhauled.
Hard weekend in Japan! First, the 7.6 earthquake, and then the airplane disaster. Deepest condolences to the families of the five who lost their lives in service to their country, but we must take a minute to praise those responsible for the safe evacuation of 379 people from a smokey fuselage that very quickly became a gigantic fireball. Amazing. Incredible. Heroic in every way.
A couple of things you learn in a short amount of time about living in Seattle: Don’t plan outdoor/backyard barbeques on Memorial Day (probably shouldn’t anywhere anyway). Memorial Day in Seattle is almost always wet and cold. Hell, one year I think I remember sleet. I don’t consume meat anymore, but I do know that shivering is not a part of the rib experience.
Additionally, best not throw a New Year’s get-together if you live anywhere near the Space Needle. I lived in Belltown for most of my twenty-plus year Seattle residency. So many wonderful memories! But I had friends who simply didn’t want to bus into Belltown at night on New Year’s Eve, and/or lived fairly far away. We didn’t have the ride-sharing options we do now (although Uber and Lyft can be real danger zones on New Year’s; that $25 dollar fare you normally would pay can be $200 on December 31st). Holiday taxis in Seattle are unreliable and pricey, too. The point is friends would drive into Belltown, call me after an hour of trying, and say, “Bauhaus, sorry to miss your party, but we’re going home. There is no place to park anywhere. The lots are full, and the streets are fuck-all.”
Yeah, don’t BBQ on Memorial Day or throw a NYE party in Belltown. You’ll be a lot happier.
Glad to see minimum wage increases. The Federal minimum wage is an embarrassment. I’m telling you, people – those Congress people don’t want to pay anyone more than a couple a hundred a month to have someone scrub their toilets while they enjoy their lobbyist-funded $90 steak. And when you ask them about this, they get furious at you for questioning their integrity.
I live in a rent-stabilized apartment and the LA City Council recently approved a 4% rent increase after being frozen since the pandemic. Well, after rubbing their hands together, it took no time for the landlord notices to go out. I got mine on Christmas Eve (can ya dig that, Ebenezer?). Pretty much wipes out my COLA raise. But you know, it had been almost three years since the last increase, so yeah, I hate it, but at least its stabilized. Man, I hate to think what my rent would be otherwise. The thing I wanted to say was that I don’t know if anybody historically could have afforded a median-priced apartment making minimum wage. Senator Warren has said that when her father fell ill, her mother got a minimum wage job at a Sears catalog store, and they were able to make their house payment, keep the lights on, and eat. But it’s a different world now obviously. $35,000 economy cars. Home prices expressed in fractions or multiples of a million dollars. Poor people’s staples like rice and beans and potatoes cost plenty. I bought one large baking potato just the other day that was $2.25. For someone born when I was, this is like living on another planet. It’s out-of-whack. If we continue in this direction, there will be even more homelessness and hunger unless you are one of the lucky ones who can 1) find and keep work, and 2) make a decent salary.
I’ve just about given up on broadcast news. It’s a disgrace what it has devolved in to but there you are. All the network news sources, even the “respectable” ones, are chomping at the bit waiting to see the list of all those old, rich guys who fucked teenagers on Jeffrey Epstein’s island. That’s part of the story to be sure, but the real story is how that kind of operation can exist here is this great country of ours. Human trafficking – modern human trafficking – in the good ol’ US of A. Sob.
@14:
It comes from the expectation frequently espoused by rich people that they should be able to buy their 1/3 pound Wagyu beef burger and artisanal truffle fries for the lowest possible price, which translates to paying the people who cook, serve and deliver said items the lowest possible amount in income. But in their minds – and minds such as yours – those people don’t deserve a decent “two rooms and a bath” (to quote George Bailey) anywhere near them or the establishments where they work, but instead must be forced to live miles and miles away and spend inordinate amounts of their day getting to and from these minimum wage jobs, because they’re not considered human beings worthy of enjoying any of the amenities and privileges afforded the rich who DO live in the city.
Does that answer your question?
@17:
What 14 day waiting period? When I purchased my Henry rifle in Lacy several years ago, the background check literally took only about 20 minutes after I selected it; I just browsed around the store until it was completed and walked away with my purchase a few minutes after that.
@24/25:
Anyone who can’t calculate a pre-tax tip in their own head – or at the very least add it up on the back of the receipt – probably shouldn’t be eating in restaurants without adult supervision anyway.
I think rent control is a great idea, with this caveat: when a rent controlled unit is available, all applicants are thrown into a cage to fight for it. Each applicant is allowed to bring one common household item into the cage as a weapon, and one item as armor. The person left standing gets the unit.
I won’t argue that Seattle isn’t an extremely expensive place to live (it is), but the take on our minimum wage success here is stupidly cynical. And stating that it’s not enough to afford a studio apartment is just a lie, as a quick search on Craigslist will show there are tons of studios and even some 1bds on Capitol Hill and other central locations for $1400 or even less. Are they large and in new luxury buildings? Probably not, but also not the point, which is that you can easily live in Seattle working a full time job at minimum wage. You would certainly have to budget yourself for food and entertainment, but maybe you could choose to go without the expense of a car (as I’ve managed to do here most of my adult life). When I got my first apartment here in the 90s I was making $5.50/hr and my place cost about $500 a month. I was scraping by until I got a new job making $8/hr, but still not exactly living large. And by my math our minimum wage & rents are more equivalent to when I was making a couple bucks more than minimum in the 90s. Obviously if you’re a single parent or trying to raise a family on that it would be worse. And we certainly have issues and need more housing, and it sucks that there are 20-something techies making $150k a year at Amazon while their drivers and warehouse folks are barely scraping by at those shitty jobs. But always finding the pessimistic view of small successes like our minimum wage just makes you look like a dick.
@29- I completely agree and have calculated tips since I was a much younger man. I think that using the automatic systems to less-than-subtly push for extraordinary tip amounts is both unnecessary and annoying AF.
@27 no one expects a gourmet burger to be cheap. The complaint lies when you pay $18 for a crappy Subway sandwich or $15 for a Big Mac meal. I don’t ever go to those places anymore because the quality of the food is simply not worth the price you are paying.
@33 When have you paid $18 for a Subway sandwich? Even with Doordash markups, prices are around $10-$14.
Or are you just imagining something?
PS A Big Mac is cheaper in Denmark than the US despite a massive difference in minimum wages.
@32,
Yeah, I’ve noticed recently where the transaction pads at some places also have the pre-loaded default amounts arranged in a different order than I’ve been accustomed to seeing. So maybe the one on the far left (that people just naturally assume will typically be the 15 or 20 percent option) is 25%+ and then they descend from there. Sneaky bastards.
‘what
the Fuck’s
in YOUR Wallet?’
–a corporate query
appealing to your
sense of entitle-
ment but Act-
ually they
just wan-
na Emp-
ty it.
Oblige them.
they’ll make it
much easier on
you — in the End.
@27: “Does that answer your question?”
No, because the premise of both the headline post, and of your resentful class-warfare response, is that someone working a minimum-wage job should always be able to afford — solo! — the “median” rent on apartments in a major city. That’s not a reasonable expectation, and never has been.
(If you still cannot figure it out, please see both @31, and my note about flatmates and housemates.)
@23
I don’t see it as good.
This new gun law and the previous ones enacted are pushed as methods to prevent crime and make people safer, but all they manage to do is place hurdles in front of people who obey the law while doing nothing to curb crime.
@28
Correct. Because bolt and lever action firearms aren’t subject to the waiting period…yet.
I do like a lever action rifle though.
The best place to watch the Space Needle NYE fireworks show is from a cozy hotel room near the Seattle Center with a view of the Needle, or from home. Anything else is a crapshoot.
I wish people would stop being so tedious about tipping. Tip. Or don’t. I was a tip worker for years and I never took it personal if someone didn’t tip, or didn’t tip 17%. Maybe they were short on funds or were having a bad day. Believe it or not it’s not all about you. The only time you have to tip is when ithe house tells you that you have to tip (typically, parties of six or greater, or banquets)