"I am very concerned"

How nice, the SCC has its own Susan Collins.

I don't have an opinion on this one way or another, but what a hilarious own goal by the dude who originally complained about the home cider business. Talk about unintended consequences.

Funny how a self-styled "pro-business moderate" can be so anti-business...

@2 -- Yep. He isn't pro-business. He is just a NIMBY. I wrote it before and I'll write it again: Fuck Alex Pedersen.

@4
Isn't that free enterprise?

The masters don't like it when you try to seize the means...

The best part of the pandemic is I got to forget about Alex Pedersen for a year.

Commercial retail space will always have advantages and is really necessary once you've outgrown your garage with your great product or service. The idea that we need to protect existing businesses from the competition of a better product or service just because it came out of someone's house is some real commi bullshit. Fuck this guy. Also, this is another great example of how making the market more free, helps, not hinders, the little guy. Good on Seattle for this move.

@8:

It isn't "commi bullshit", it's exactly the opposite, namely "Capitalist bullshit" where bigger, established businesses attempt to stifle innovation and competition from newer upstarts.

@9 You are correctI was being a bit hyperbolic. Its called crony capitalism and it sucks. It keeps a lot of players out, especially low income and minorities. This is where big guys use pols and govt regs to keep the rest out. SUCKS.

Sometimes being narced out(secretly mind you) by a neighbor(or larger competitor preapproved by the state) stills feels a little communist.

Also, the Yonder thing is really a hecklers veto using the state as a wedge to bring the clamp down on a good thing. Again, why did this anonymous individual not first attempt to talk with the owners first? Its not like their is a business bureaucracy that would stop you from immediately getting to the top dog of an owner operated garage business.

@4: Poor straw man there. A "Kittens" dance club (adult cabaret) would have to comply with numerous ordinances in addition to basic business regulations. Assuming that they do, I would have no more problem with that in my neighborhood than the guy who bought a house and started using it for his fundie ministry.

@15: "low-income and minority largely do not own a home or garage"

True. But allowing home businesses for those that have homes/garages takes nothing away from low income people. On the other hand, prohibiting them might just create a few more low income people. Soon to be without a house/garage.

This is a reminder of how wearing a bike helmet went out the window, the moment a bunch of kool kids from the Bay Area showed up with venture capital money and colorful bicycles. Suddenly, it was okay to let drunk tourists fly down Pike St at 30 mph without a helmet. Now, the kool kids want a retroactive pass for breaking the rules for running a cider bar, and it's time to forget about parking issues, signage issues, and neighborhood impacts. Anyone asking if rules are followed is a total 'narc', and will be hounded mercilessly by the kool-kid-troll-gang.

And if you think businesses in the Rainier Valley or on Delridge are going to get the same kool-kid pass, then your naive. If you break the rules, and get laws passed after the fact to justify it, you're overdosing on privilege.

Finally, it's notable that the Stranger writer is about cutting trees down ASAP. The developer crowd will be cheering for this Stranger writer. Housing is being built right-and-left, in Seattle. It's going to be okay if a few trees are left behind.

Homeowners should be permitted to do whatever they want with their property, regardless of complaints from NIMBYS. Goodness knows we pay enough money to maintain a home with an enormous tax load, so folks should be allowed to have a consignment shop or waxing business on their premises. This is how great businesses like Amazon are born, and these leaders like Alex Pedersen are cynical and controlling. Also, folks should be allowed to build a granny house on their property for their elders if they so desire. The whole idea here is to make families more independent and self-contained, and reinforce the traditional idea of a nuclear family that has more of what it needs on the family premises. This produces a healthier society and of course reduces automotive travel. It would be nice to see the return of the neighborhood grocery store and small business plazas that harken back to the fifties and sixties, so these city ordinances that encourage home businesses are a welcome treatment for the COVID physical and social disease.

@20: "Homeowners should be permitted to do whatever they want with their property"

Rifle range, here we go.

Someone's been going a little heavy on the urbanist propaganda, which seems to come from a cohort who group up in the post Ronald Reagan era where they were steeped in the ideology of deregulation.

Small businesses have it rough in today's Seattle. I mean, sure, if you count nail salons and the like, or if you think a fast food franchise is a small business, there's still someone in most of those storefronts. But the high cost of living, changing retail environment and very high rents at desirable locations, make it tough to stay there. I gather a lot of readers don't care, but if you do care - that's what Pedersen is talking about. The precarious health of our neighborhood small businesses, which for me is critical to Seattle as a desirable place to live.

"Folks should be allowed to build a granny house"? Were you under the impression that wasn't the case? They've been legal for, I don't, couple decades I believe.

Neighborhood grocery stores are a nice idea, but this ordinance isn't for anything remotely like that, and anyway the trend of the modern grocery industry isn't going to be reversed by a change in land use regulations.