8/30/2023 0 Comments Vice restaurant seattle![]() Gay bars were peculiarly vulnerable to police pressure. Mayor Dorm Braman, who had endorsed the city's Tolerance Policy in 1964, pleaded equal ignorance.īut there was something much darker than work-shirking beat cops going on. Chief Ramon expressed shock, saying, "This is the first I have heard about this" ("Ramon Probes Report. Informants told of similar goings-on at other bars. When the tavern was closed, up to a dozen officers, on- or off-duty, sat around drinking beer and playing cards. Beat cops had a key to the place, passed on from shift to shift. On January 13, 1967, the Wilson Twins wrote about their stakeout of the Pacific Tavern in downtown Seattle, described as an "off-beat club," a euphemism for gay bars. Seattle's corporation counsel proposed a city ordinance prohibiting "homosexual dancing," a statement both homophobic and stunningly naive about the legitimate reach of the law. In response to the Wilsons' exposé, Ramon said he would try to revoke the licenses of all gay bars and cabarets. "), an unintentional but fairly apt description of the root of the city's official corruption. ![]() The licensing director explained, "We move from the financial end and the police department from the moral end," ("HOMOSEXUAL CLUB. Seattle's licensing department blamed the Seattle Police Department (SPD) for approving a cabaret license by noting on the application that "it does not object to the granting of this license" to the applicant, who formerly ran a gay steam bath ("Police Made Mistake. John Wilson and another reporter, Marshall Wilson (an unrelated duo later dubbed the "Wilson Twins"), kept digging. Wilson also wrote, "For several years off-duty policemen worked at the doors of several of the bars," something Chief of Police Frank Ramon (1914-1986) "learned of only a few months ago" ("Seattle Homosexual Problem. things just got out of hand" ("Seattle Homosexual Problem. "Buzz" Cook: "The word is out that Seattle is soft on homosexuals. On September 21, 1966, Seattle Times reporter John Wilson penned a story with the headline "Seattle Homosexual Problem Reported To Be 'Out of Hand.'" He wrote with some alarm that an estimate of 12,000 homosexuals in Seattle was "conservative," and quoted the city's deputy police chief, M. The Seattle Times: An Unfortunate Start, But a Start A century-old tradition of entrenched corruption disintegrated with surprising speed, although most key participants avoided legal punishment. attorney, a reformed city council, and the voters' ouster of a long-serving prosecutor, brought it all down. Finally, in the last half of the 1960s, an awakened press, some honest cops, a U.S. Other vices, particularly those having to do with sex, could not be officially sanctioned they flourished by bribing those whose job it was to enforce the laws. ![]() Most forms of illegal gambling were locally licensed and taxed, reaping much-needed revenue. Territorial laws, and later state laws, banned various vices, but were largely ignored by local law enforcement. Official corruption began in Seattle's early days and continued with only sporadic interference for more than 100 years.
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