Keeping a Capitol Hill nightclub in business ain’t easy.
With The Social facing a hearing next week to determine if it can secure a permanent liquor license to continue operating on E Olive Way, E Pine’s R Place is also facing a bureaucratic challenge — though this one may be less onerous than working with the state liquor board.
According to the City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development and the City’ Attorney’s office, R Place never obtained final approval for its 23-years-ago construction as a nightclub and did not received an official Certificate of Occupancy from the city.
Mind you, R Place has been boogeying down on E Pine since the ’90s. Meanwhile, a construction permit dating all the way back to 1989 has since expired.
In the meantime, the club is open and as ready for business as ever.
If the situation seems familiar it’s because something similar has, indeed, happened here before. In February 2012, CHS reported on similar issues with nightclub permitting faced by Neighbours. The club seems to have come through the DPD challenges, at least, just fine.
We reached out to R Place management to learn more about the situation but owner Steve Timmons has not responded.
Before you get too worried about the big R, a DPD spokesperson tells us these situations are “typically easy to resolve” and involve a business working with the agency to renew the permit and then going through an inspection and approval process with the agency.
Only one wrinkle: When we asked DPD about the situation on February 6th, we were told that R Place hadn’t yet responded to warning letters and that the case was going to be referred to the City Attorney for litigation. That same day, it turns out, R Place was granted an extension until mid-March to get the permitting and inspection process with DPD worked out.
I actually won’t go to R Place due to the lack of visible fire exits from the upper floors. It’s all fun and games until a fire, earthquake etc and you have a stamped of dancers heading for the one set of stairs. I haven’t been there in years but last time I was, the 3rd floor was so crowded you could barely move around.
The clubs lack of response is telling that they may know they will fail an inspection. Perhaps the FD knows this so they looked at the permitting?
While it has been a while since a gay bar burned on Capitol Hill, enough of them have burned to make the lack of egress a serious issue.
Remember the old R Place location? Burned later when it was Fort Seattle. The Eagle? Burned about 24 years ago and rebuilt. One near where Purr is now? Was that the Encore or another? Burned in the dark of night in the mid 80s? Neighbours? The FBI stopped the neo-nazi who was on his way to bomb it.
I don’t go to bars a lot anymore, but I do look for the exits.
It’s amazing how much things have changed in 5 years. I loved to go to R-Place in the past. Remember The Timberline….? When we moved into the new space, we had to put almost $1M into structural and fire suppression systems. Had to have so many fire exits and ease of exit. There even was a fire door that would drop down between the two bar areas if there was an actual fire. But that was basically new construction and we had to have all of the official “Blessings”. The fire department really loved what we did. Too bad we couldn’t keep things going. Good luck Steve and Rick……