Please don’t forget to attend Monday’s Hearing on the City’s Petition to open rulemaking for extended hours of alcohol service:
Monday, March 12, 2012, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Seattle City Hall
Bertha Knight Landes Room
600 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
Mindful of the fact that this was scheduled during work hours, we made a request that another hearing take place in the community during evening hours. I received this response from the Liquor Board: “At this point we are scheduling just one hearing in the Seattle area.” (Note- This is at this point of the process, there may be additional hearings beyond this stage of the process if the petition is approved. EastPAC has received no other information or schedules as to future meetings)
Also from the Liquor Board:
“Prior to making a determination of whether to pursue rulemaking, the Board is interested in hearing from community members and leaders, communities surrounding Seattle, law enforcement at the local, county and state level, neighborhood and community groups and other interested parties.”
We hope our communities are well represented, and we encourage you to attend. For more background information on the City of Seattle’s petition, please see the LCB website: http://www.liq.wa.gov/rules/extended-hours-rule-making. Please also see the attached timeline for the consideration of the City of Seattle’s Petition.
If you absolutely cannot come, you may also provide your comments via email to the Rules Coordinator, Karen McCall: [email protected].
Hearings such as this are most often done during business hours, as that is when people in government work. This is not unusual at the slightest.
As I’ve said elsewhere, this hearing is just about a rule change that will allow the Liquor Board to then hear requests from Cities about changing closing times. There is no current proposal from Seattle yet to respond to. If you’re concerned about the Seattle proposal to extend hours, you can feel free to comment on it at this hearing, or you might want to wait to actually see what’s in it before getting worked up. It seems EastPac would rather get you worked up about a proposal they actually haven’t seen yet.
IF the rule change goes through, then Mayor McGinn will have to put together a plan to present to City Council, who will hold hearings on it. And there will be all sorts of further opportunities to comment on and discuss the actual plan, and to effect the details of it.