A Central District shopkeeper says he suspects a man stole $500 while an overly friendly woman distracted him just before closing time last month, according to Seattle Police.

The shopkeeper told police a suspicious man entered his 2000 block E Union store February 18th and asked to use the bathroom.

Later that evening when the store was closed, a woman knocked on the front door and began asking the shopkeeper about items for sale, according to police. After the woman left, the shopkeeper walked to the back of the store and realized his cash drawer was open, and an envelope with $500 was missing.

Though he never saw the man enter the store, police say the shopkeeper suspects the man who used the bathroom earlier that day unlocked a back door to the business and used it to enter while the woman distracted him. Police were unable to locate the thief or his possible accomplice, but were following up by checking the store’s surveillance cameras.

The suspect was described as a black male in his late 40s to 50s, about 6’2″ and 200 pounds with short hair and a scruff beard. The possible friendly accomplice was a black female in her 40s, about 5’4″ and “average” build. She was wearing “pink striped” glasses and “big earrings” on the day of the crime.

The shopkeeper told police that the thief stole an envelope containing $500 and several ones and fives but left behind hundreds of dollars in the till.

by Dikla Tuchman

Inside the original Chuck’s (Images: Dikla Tuchman for CHS)

North Seattleites — who have long enjoyed the convenience of a small corner store which also provides over 30 craft beer taps, reasonably priced growler fills to-go, and a wide selection of nearly 1,000 craft beer bottles (with an emphasis on local beer) — will now be sharing the wealth with Capitol Hill and the Central District.

Last week, Chuck Shin, owner of the above described Chuck’s Hop Shop — aka, Chuck’s 85th Street Market, signed a 10-year lease to open another venture at 20th and Union, across the street from Katy’s Corner Café and replacing the empty Copymaster building at the corner.

While the new construction will not begin until April of this year, Shin anticipates a quick buildout and hopes to open Chuck’s Hop Shop CD to the neighborhood by May 2013. Continue reading →

A week ago, a prisoner escorted by two deputies at King County Jail facilities near Harborview escaped into thin air. The suspect — last seen heading toward the Yesler Terrace neighborhood — was still wearing handcuffs as he made his run for freedom while police units and King County’s Guardian One helicopter circled the area.

We haven’t seen another mention of the case by Seattle’s big media since last Monday even as the suspect remains at large.

Authorities are still searching for Alan Polevia. The 31-year-old is approximately 5’7″ and 160 pounds and was described as Samoan by police during Monday’s manhunt. We’ve asked King County Sheriff, the agency charged with rounding Polevia up, for a photograph but have not yet heard back.

Polevia was in custody for two theft warrants stemming from his December arrest for investigation of burglary. He also was convicted of third degree assault in 2006.

Though it would have been the cheapest alternative, Seattle City Light has dropped an unpopular alternative route that would have required 100-foot towers across Capitol Hill and the Central District for its planned 115-kilovolt transmission line connecting the coming Denny Substation with the city’s grid.

CHS first reported on the issue in October as City Light began the public process to scope the project. City Light planners said the route — up Denny to 14th Ave and then south through the CD to the Massachusetts substation — was an unlikely choice but included the route as one of three proposed options for the line. Neighbors in the area took to flyering existing utility poles and sharing information via email lists and, of course, by word of mouth. By January, the public feedback on the route was still coming in — and still decidedly against the proposed alternative.

While a major infrastructure project will still take place just off the Hill along Denny, it appears residents and businesses in the area won’t need to be concerned with giant towers being part of the project. As part of the just-released State Environmental Policy Act impact statement (PDF) on the project, City Light has revealed that planners have reduced the route alternatives to two underground paths through downtown:

Transmission
During the scoping process, City Light presented three preliminary transmission alternatives representing a range ofcost, construction methods, and possible impacts. City Light stated a preference for building transmission west of I‐5 iffeasible. At this time, City Light does not intend to proceed with the primarily overhead route east of I‐5 and that optionwill not be evaluated as an alternative within the Draft EIS. The decision to delete this route as an alternative for thisproject was based on the viability of more direct alternatives that have limited short‐term construction impacts. Thetwo transmission line alternatives that will be evaluated within the Draft EIS are:

• Transmission Line Alternative 1 (TL1) ‐ underground through downtown Seattle (generally along the eastern edge of the Downtown Seattle Business Core)
• Transmission Line Alternative 2 (TL2) ‐ through the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (tunnel)

Last year, an electric car gave Garfield High School students hope for the future when parents auctioned a Nissan Leaf to fund a career and college counselor.

After raising $40,000 and successfully investing in Garfield’s High School & Beyond Center, the PTSA is hosting the unique auction again this year, giving participants the chance to win a 2013 Tesla Sedan electric car.

“Electric cars represent the future, and we’re working to secure the future for our kids,” says PTSA President Phil Sherburne.

Garfield High School PTSA says they’ll “RAISE THE WOOF!” for the second year by auctioning an electric car to make up for budget cuts that left Garfield students without a career and college counselor three years ago.

2012’s auction netted $40,000 after the PTSA sold 750 tickets. This year, they’re doubling the number of tickets in hopes of raising $80,000 after expenses.

“The center is all about getting kids to think earlier about what to do beyond high school,” Sherburne says. “Whether it’s college or tech school, what we don’t want is for them graduate and have no plan.”

The High School and Beyond center aims to creatively use community resources and paid staff to meet the wide-ranging needs of Garfield’s students and reduce the academic achievement gap.

Any remaining funds will go toward funding the Read Right program and grants for teacher supplies.

While students can’t be directly involved in the raffle sales because of gambling laws, they’ve helped spread the word to parents, graduates and others in the community. Sherburne says there are still plenty of tickets available.

To purchase a ticket, contact Phil Sherburne or visit the auction’s website for more information.

The winner will be announced at Garfield’s “Raise the Woof” all-school auction on March 1, at Showbox SoDo.

• Auction tickets are $60 and include a dinner by renowned chefs, and musical performances featuring Garfield students and staff.
• Second, third and fourth-place winners will also receive a cash prize.
• The winner of the Tesla may also chose to take $50,00 in lieu of the car.
• RSVP by February 18, 2013.

A man tells police his assailants were armed with a shotgun that they beat him with in an early Sunday robbery near 22nd Ave and E Olive St. The preliminary SPD report on the incident is below.

According to the report, the man was walking home around 2:30 AM when he was suddenly struck in the back of the head and knocked to the ground. The shotgun-armed muggers made off with the man’s cell phone and wallet. SPD’s search for the suspects was not successful.

Here’s the full report on Sunday’s robbery from SPD:

A man was struck in the head and robbed.  This morning at approximately 2:30 a.m., the victim had his headphones in listening to music. He was walking back to his house in the 2200 block of E. Olive St when he was suddenly struck in the back of his head by a blunt object causing him to be knocked to the ground.

When he turned around, the two suspects were standing over him. One of the suspects was pointing a shotgun at the victim’s face. The suspect then struck the  victim in the face with the shotgun several times. The suspects forcibly took the victim’s cell phone and wallet and fled the scene. The victim called 911 from his house. The victim sustained lacerations requiring stitches to the back of his head and under his left eye

Containment was quickly set up and a K-9 track was attempted without success.

Anyone with information about the suspects’ whereabouts is asked to call 911. Anonymous tips are welcome.

The Hill is alive with the sound of beer steins and bocce balls chasing the pallino. Our sister site Capitol Hill Seattle first broke the news about a beer hall and those most-exciting bowling courts coming to 12th Ave last July. This week, the team behind Poquitos will open Von Trapp’s, now described as a “Bavarian-inspired bier hall” with with five indoor bocce courts, two mezzanines, three bars, and a fireside “bier den.”

The space is enormous.

“We wanted to create something for everybody — including families,” Deming Maclise, one of the partners behind the venture tells CHS. Maclise told CHS his wife hails from Austria — so she can vouch for boules being a legit Bavarian pastime. In the meantime, Maclise and friends have built a beer hall seemingly big enough to hold every family on Capitol Hill.

An equally epic press release on the new addition to 12th Ave is below. “Beer will obviously be central to Von Trapp’s,” it notes. You can check out the roster of taps, below. Doug Wargo, formerly at Quinn’s, will manage Von Trapp’s beery bar. Cocktails, beer-based, are also available though a Bavarian cocktail hall just doesn’t have the same ring. Continue reading →

Seattle Schools superintendent Jose Banda has won his battle to get Garfield High School in line and administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests. CHS reported on a faculty-led effort to boycott the standardized tests that critics claim are a poor measure of academic progress and are biased against students of color and the poor. The district plans to use the test results as part of the teacher evaluation process for the first time this year.

(Image: Seattle Schools)

The testing will begin Tuesday at Garfield though many students are expected to be excused following a surge in parents opting their children out of the process following the push-back from Garfield teachers and support from other schools in the district and across the country.

Expect to see students hit the streets on Wednesday as a series of Scrap the MAP! protests are planned across the country.

What: Educators, Students, Parents and supporters of Public Education nation-wide will take action in support of Garfield High School teachers and all teachers in Seattle Public Schools refusing to administer the MAP test.

Teachers at Garfield High School and other Seattle Public Schools have gained national attention and support for their stand against the Measure of Academic Progress, for its invalidity, waste of time and resources and its scandalous arrival to Seattle. We call on supporters of public education nationwide to participate in actions in their locale to show their support for our effort to Scrap the MAP. Supporters will hold meetings, rallies, take photos, and wear red to show support on February 6th.

As the nation-wide day of protest grows, we will send updates to the media with all the cities and organizations who are participating.

When: Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Where: All over the nation! In Seattle actions will take place at participating schools, including Garfield, Orca, Chief Sealth, and Center School.

Some of the prominent organizations and individuals that have expressed their support for the Seattle MAP test boycott: National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), San Diego Education Association, UTLA Board of Directors, Parents Across America, Des Moines, Iowa Education Association, Diane Ravitch, Garfield High School PTSA, Garfield HS Associated Student Body, Dr. Wayne Au, Dexter Tang, President of Seattle Student Senate, Matt Damon & his mother Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Seattle Education Association (SEA), The SEA Substitute Association, and Social Equality Educators (SEE).

Garfield serves as the public high school for most Capitol Hill teenagers. All Seattle ninth graders are required to take the MAP reading test. Unlike state-mandated tests, the MAP has no bearing on whether a student can graduate. The district contends the tests are useful for measuring achievement and improvement. This year, the district also plans to begin utilizing the results in teacher evaluations:

Teachers who get high scores on both student growth and classroom observations may qualify for promotions and higher pay. Teachers with low growth scores will get extra classroom observation by their principal and more training opportunities. If they don’t improve, they could end up on probation according to the teacher contract.

When navigating murky waters, it’s good to have a map. One such chart of Seattle produced by the Department of Planning and Development as part of the process to figure just how, exactly, the state will regulate commercial cannabis in Seattle following I-502’s approval is making its way around inboxes and social networks. It shows just how restricted the Seattle’s “Cannabis Zoning Restrictions” could be. The interested and the entrepreneurial of First Hill, Capitol Hill and the Central District will also notice the area’s single zone of commercial marijuana opportunity — 23rd and Union.

“I was kinda hoping for Little Amsterdam,” real estate investor and business owner Ian Eisenberg tells CHS — only partly joking — about potential names for the business district that could take shape around the Central District’s 23rd and Union.

Eisenberg, who has emerged as a major landholder at the intersection and has plans for more development, said he hasn’t seriously started working on building a cannabis economy at the corner but he’s definitely been sharing the map around the neighborhood.

The city’s planning process around cannabis zoning started last year to deal with the growing effort around medical marijuana and hasn’t yet expanded to deal with the implications of a new commercial market for the drug.

“The City currently regulates medical cannabis the way we regulate any other business,” a DPD spokesperson tells us about the legislation currently being worked on. “We are proposing some clarifications to our current rules though to account for both medical and recreational cannabis operations.” Continue reading →

Police swarmed the area around 27th and Thomas Friday morning after a gunpoint robbery that involved a suspect — and silver pistol — matching descriptions reported in two recent hold-ups on Capitol Hill.

According to police, a man called 911 Friday morning just after 9 AM to report his mother had been held up at gunpoint and had her purse taken on the street near 27th and Thomas. The suspect was described as a black male in his 20s, wearing a long, black jacket and brandishing a silver pistol. According to radio dispatches, the victim said the suspect had chambered a round as he threatened her during the course of the robbery.

Police responded to the area on the foggy morning and could be seen on foot and slowly cruising the neighborhood’s streets. SPD reports that the search was not successful and that the suspect was not seen again in the area after leaving the scene of his crime eastbound on Thomas.

The robbery is the third in the area this month involving a suspect threatening his victims with a silver pistol. CHS reported on this gunpoint hold-up near 21st and John Monday afternoon and a woman told police she had a gun held to her head in a robbery at 21st and Mercer on Thursday, January 10th.