The Seattle chapter of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression is planning a protest and flyering rally Saturday in Cal Anderson Park against the city’s establishment of new exclusion zones including the new Capitol Hill “Stay out of Drug Area.”
“These measures voted in by the Seattle City Council in September – despite a room full of community members speaking up against it – bar anyone with a prostitution or drug-related conviction from entering entire sections of the city,” the group claims. “Both sex workers and drug users are already heavily marginalized and criminalized groups of people. All the city council has done is put them out of sight and out of minds of the people who claim to represent us!”
CHS reported here on the Seattle City Council approval of the SODA and Stay Out of Area Prostitution zones in September.
The new zones will be located on Capitol Hill, and in the International District, Belltown, the University District, and Pioneer Square with the new SOAP zone covering Aurora. More could be added.
Under the legislation, a designation will allow a judge to bar drug or prostitution law offenders busted in a zone from reentering the area for up to two years. A SODA or SOAP order can also be imposed as a condition of release from jail. Violating an order will become a new gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.
District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth drove the effort to add a Capitol Hill SODA zone. The restrictions will be “established as the area of the Capitol Hill neighborhood bordered on the north by East Thomas Street, on the south by East Union Street, on the east by 11th Avenue, and on the west by Harvard Avenue.”
It will include Cal Anderson, the busy Capitol Hill Station light rail and transit facility, and the areas around the Harvard Market shopping center as well as the core of the Pike/Pine nightlife scene.
Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr has said the SOAP and SODA “strategy is not ideal for treating addiction, which is a medical problem” but has said she believes the legislation will help police deal with areas of the city where loitering is a problem.
It is not clear when SPD’s enforcement of the zones will begin.
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The activists need to stop conflating a couple dozen people available to sit at city hall and talk for hours with the electorate.
It’s disingenuous at best.
Talk? I think you mean chant, perform and intimidate in a cult-like group-speak way.
The current council needs to stop conflating barely winning their elections in a historically low election as a mandate to screw over our city with moronic legislation such as this.
It’s disingenuous at best.
They are clawing back gains made. Gains = taxes. Gains = profits.
So get rid of the outgoing money ideas. And keep the profit ideas. At taxpayers expense AND against wishes.
Joy ran a a man of the people. She’s nothing but a greedy toadie.
Misgendering is the most basic stuff. Just stop.
Ummm…You were not there. It was standing room only.
So what… how many does the room fit… 50? 75? 100? What sort of percentage of the electorate could they possibly represent? Let’s be generous and say 100 people came, that would be two tenths of one percent of the voters in Seattle…
Groups like this think drug dealers and violent criminals are better than you. Yes, you, the person reading this comment.
Sorry NAARPR but can’t agree on this one . all in on SODA, something gotta be done-this city has become a cesspool
Mad because you still want to do it or what?? They won’t be stopping you at the border of these zones to check ID. You shouldn’t need to worry unless you straight up just want to do drugs and prostitute yourself.
People in this town pick the weirdest hills to die on.
I am sure these losers will leave a trail of graffiti like they always do. I wish the ordinance would be expanded to exclude people from the park that are caught vandalizing the park.
These people need to get a life
I never could understand why “no drugs” became a racist policy?
I would think systematically allowing the most vulnerable population to have access and throw their life savings away on drugs is racist.
Most of the street weirdos are bearded white dudes anyway…
“no drugs” isn’t necessarily racist — but “the police can charge whoever they want if they *think* they *look like* a drug user” is certainly going to lead to those outcomes. SODA literally does not require a drug charge conviction to be enforced and to give someone a criminal record.
so the activists basically want residents of Cap Hill to continue walking around and over hunched over fentanyl addicts and psychotic meth users.
Prostitution isn’t an issue on Capitol Hill. It’s an issue to residents near and on Aurora Ave in North Seattle. Clearly the activists are basically saying FU to those residents as well.
So do these activists basically want to see Seattle become a crime ridden city with tons of unhandled social issue problems in order for people to move out, which in turns leave vacant apartments and property values severely dropping only for them to swoop in and buy depreciated properties using their trust fund/savings/parents’ money?
I’m not confident that the SODA area on Capitol Hill will actually be enforceable, especially with the current absence of street-level beat officers, but it is at least another tool that can be used to try and curb the increasing drug trade along Broadway.
That said, for his group to hold a rally and to oppose the legislation is to be pro-drug and pro-lawlessness. Another example of far-left craziness.
Opposing laws that research has shown over and over to not work, which the city has deployed in the past and had them fail, that the city’s own police department have said aren’t effective and which will primarily be used to address “loitering” on the rare instance the cops actually do anything on the street, is not “pro-lawlessness”. That’s an absurd false equivalency. Nor is it “pro-drug”.
Making things illegal does not, in fact, do much of anything to curb behavior. Banning people from the neighborhoods where they may live, where all their limited support networks exist simply means they are simply going to violate the ban, or else fall into even more of a dire situation. Passing a law you know people are going to break, which will inevitably lead to them disregarding the law, is that “pro-lawlessness”? Making laws that are hard to enforce, which people get away with breaking routinely, often encourages (some) people to disregard the law generally.
And if they DO get caught, a judge can send them to a jail for a year, and you get to pay for it, and their life gets no better (it probably gets worse, because they get out and may still be banned from one of the places they could go to get back on their feet).
In the meantime, someone else will have filled their shoes in the community, because we are not addressing the root causes of what leads people into these bad situations in the first place.
Opposing ineffective drug laws that makes the lives of addicts on the rare occasion they are enforced worse is very often a lot more “anti-drug” than trying to further criminalize addiction. Alternatively put, the SODA law is arguably more “pro-drug” than opposing it because for any people subject to it will simply have worse lives that encourage them to fall further into addiction.
We’ve been fighting the War on Drugs with a punitive mentality for rather more than half a century, and the drugs keep on winning decisively. Maybe let’s not keep doing things we know aren’t effective just because they make some people feel better, or for the sake of looking like we’re doing something.
Seattle elected a “tough on crime” council during a low election. History has shown that crime usually rises during “tough on crime” administrations, whether local or national.
A lot of it has to do with implementing things like SODA (aka exile, which do absolutely nothing to curb crime. The far-right blog trolls are sure out in force claiming it does, with of course no evidence or studies.
Nothing else to do? I would prefer to extend this zone to the whole city.
“she believes the legislation will help police deal with areas of the city where loitering is a problem.”
Really? I am to believe the police chief thinks it will help with loitering???
Riiiiight. It’s simply pushing them down the road to loiter. And she KNOWS THAT!
The idea is not so much the right to go where you please.
It’s that plus taking money away from solving the problem to push people down the road. NOT solve the issues.
It’s not a defense to use drugs at will. It’s a plea for an all hands on deck aproach.
“Seattle Muni. Code 12A.21.020: … A judge … may issue a SODA order to anyone charged with … any criminal violation of the Controlled Substances Act” … [OR] … anyone charged with … assault, harassment, theft, criminal trespass, property destruction, or unlawful use or possession of weapons occurring in a designated SODA zone … as a condition of pretrial release …”
The important key-word/phrases in this unconstitutional legislation is the additional qualifier of merely being “charged with” (not “convicted of”) – transforming ordinary police agents into individually deputized/empowered judges capable of restricting civil liberties based upon what are, and in many cases may forever remain, unproven allegations. This constitutes the modus operandi of a “police state” – yet some folks appear to pompously chortle like privileged magpies with their (arbitrarily selective, socio-political caste-system inspired) utter contempt for due legal process – that is, at least when the law is applied to citizens other than their own “specially entitled selves”.
“Washington State Constitution, Title 1, SECTION 3 – Personal Rights:
No person shall be deprived of … liberty … without due process of law.”
so what you’re saying is “screw the residents of these areas. they need to welcome drug dealers, street addicts and prostitutes with open arms in these areas” regardless of the activities they do, which have included pimps and drug dealers having gun fights in residential streets.
got it..
Note that it is in fact our own Washington State Constitution that (in effect quite clearly) says: You and I as individual citizens are not justified, or are we empowered to suspend constitutional rights simply because we may develop acute cases of rhetorical “bees in the bonnet” about imaginal “fiefdoms of class and special privilege”.
Or we could, you know, attempt to solve the problems, though the current council doesn’t seem to have any will to do that. They are the ones preferring to “screw over residents” of these area PLUS the adjacent areas.
Or we could also recruit, hire, and train additional police officers to fill the deficit in SPD. I’m also for firing the existing corrupt ones who’ve been holding SPD back from truly reforming. At least the mayor made the right step by firing Diaz today.
Correct, the denial of freedom of movement and freedom of association based merely on allegations and suspicion is probably not constitutional, either on a State or Federal level.
You’re right, this kind of policy should not be implemented on a charge alone, but on a conviction. Due process is a necessity. That said, as someone who lives in a ground floor apartment a few blocks from Cal Anderson, I am 100% in favor of reducing the blight and public disorder I see every day. Human rights are vitally important, and that shouldn’t mean giving people carte blanche to terrorize responsible residents, damage hard-won investments and destroy the culture and character of beloved spaces. Broadway and Cal Anderson have always had their problems, but they’re a complete shit show right now. We need a tourniquet on some of these wounds before the city bleeds out.
Thank you for your understandable thoughts – as well as confirming the importance of limiting ourselves to constitutional (governmental, and private) actions. I live in the U-District, and am no stranger to being confronted with the tragic and avoidable situations that have evolved surrounding Draconian drug policies, engendered by an over century long patently immorally punitive and unconstitutional, fiscally as well as morally bankrupt War on People Who Use Drugs.
The pharmacological absurdity of aggressively throttling and punitively prohibiting substances, many of which – in the pure pharmaceutical forms that can be manufactured/distributed – are themselves vastly physiologically safer and less harmful than the alcohol, NSAIDs, and firearms that competent adults in our police state are left to resort to in order to allay their various pains and sufferings. Instead, around a million have died from street-poisons.
It can be argued that certain classes of drugs (notably, alcohol and amphetamines) may engender aggressive/violent behaviors – and our society should rightfully restrict and punish such (actual, not faux) crimes. Vices are not crimes. Competent adults have natural rights to property and liberty where it comes to our bodies/minds.
An obvious solution that would in short order completely undercut the illicit marketeers who are an American (central/south as well as US) scourge would be to eliminate all CSAs, de-schedule/legalize drugs for competent adults, and offer safe pharmaceutical grade drugs at the inexpensive costs for which these things can be made.
Rather than continue our utterly futile and doomed war upon human nature and indeed our very own selves and fellow citizens providing safe pharmaceutical maintenance doses to registered drug users. The recent pilot hydromorphone distribution program in Vancouver BC works. People stay home, are not harmful to others, and do not get infections or die from drug overdoses. We’re utter fools to keep thinking that our chemo-facist authoritarianism will ever succeed. Such theocratic moral crusade fever dreams are phantasmagorical.
Have inquired of the Seattle ACLU office as to whether they may have plans to formally oppose this unconstitutional municipal ordinance. (Practically), such a challenge may well require that aggrieved citizens (with “standing”) have the courage to stand up against the City of Seattle and it’s dubious officers and gendarmes. We in Seattle would be wise to vigorously oppose and to refuse to participate in what amounts to a highly unconstitutional police state.
(As referenced above), below is a link to Seattle ACLU office’s August 7, 2024 email sent to various Officers of City of Seattle:
https://x.com/AshleyNerbovig/status/1823080448702230730/photo/1
Can we ban these morons from these areas too?
Don’t ban them… make them live in one of the buildings that these folks hang out in front of… see how they feel after a year or so of stepping over feces and needles, not being able to ever have a package delivered or leave a bike locked up for a few min, being woken at all hours by fights/random screaming, having their car windows busted out a few times or up on Aurora, worrying about being caught in the middle of a pimp gun battle…
I’m sorry, but these “medical problems” are associated with violence, theft, destruction of property, and a general feeling of public disorder. These issues are destroying the significant investments people have made in Seattle, creating destructive blight and flight in favor of enabling the most dysfunctional members of society. The city doesn’t owe anyone a second chance. An infraction should be a wake-up call, not an invitation to keep damaging the community. I’m all for social services. I’m also for personal responsibility.