Mugme Street news

This is about the area near where I work:

My heart is a little heavy because the city that I love, the city in which I grew up, the city where I’ve chosen to raise a family and make my livelihood, it’s just done. I’m finished with Seattle.

Two weeks ago, we were talking to Seattle police about the area around Westlake Center. It’s an area that has gotten completely out of control. There is rampant open weed smoking everywhere you look between Westlake and Pike Place. There’s open drug dealing going on down there. There is all kinds of crime.

There is no way I would bring a family into downtown Seattle right now. The criminals have won. The gangs have won. The protesters are out of control.

Seattle police, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, Kshama Sawant, they’ve all lost. But they refuse to do anything about it because it’s the rabble-rousers that comprise their base. They don’t dare stand up to the criminals and protesters who have taken over downtown Seattle because that is the element that got our politicians elected.

Yup. I didn’t care for what I saw here over three years ago when I first started working here. There have been ups and downs since then but the culture I see and hear (literally, many floors up from the street I can hear them chatting nearly everyday) is that of looters (in the Ayn Rand sense). I don’t see it getting better any time soon.

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19 thoughts on “Mugme Street news

  1. A microcosm for the whole country, and for the world, and for many of our personal relationships.

  2. Bummer. I was at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for 18 months and found Seattle to be a fun place. Now that I think on it, though, there were a lot of folks asking for spare change even way back when. I miss the seafood.

  3. Isn’t pot legal in Washington?

    To me, his whole post just sounds whiny. What does he mean “Seattle police couldn’t handle it.” Did they call in the National Guard?

    He may not like protesters, but they protect some of our most precious rights which are the freedom of speech and assembly. Perhaps he would rather live in another country where those rights are curtailed?

    • Pot is legal but it’s a sense of lawlessness down there that the pot smoking makes obvious. I don’t give a shit what folks do at home but thuggy guys and dope smoke don’t give me warm fuzzy feelings whenever I have to transfer buses around Westlake.

      • My tolerance level for stuff like that is very high. I doubt I would be bothered by it.

        • And I’m talking about the whole scenario, not just the thuggy-looking guys and the smoke. The drug dealer/divey/biker/whatever atmosphere is something I’m used to.

          • But it was exactly that sort of lawless state of open rebellion and contempt for culture that caused my parents to move out of the bay area with their family in the 60’s, going to Alaska. It was a good move, I think. I would NEVER want to raise a family surrounded by that sort of electile dysfunction.

    • He means what he said, which is that they had to end the event early because of the lawlessness.

      • They ought to be arrested then. No one should have to put up with aggressive protesters.

        But the police should leave alone protesters who march, chant, sit down or lay down (providing it’s only for minutes, not hours), etc.

    • But no one has accused me of being one of those “law and order” types since very early in my college years, either.

  4. Pot is legal, but smoking it in public is not. I was taking the bus from 3rd and pike a while back, and some guy whipped out a crack pipe right next to me and blazed away. I’ve seen drug deals on busses, not to mention the outdoor shopping bonanza going on. Police turn a blind eye to it all.

    • Actually? Quite a lot. I’ve been in MacArthur Park after midnight… Have you? I go to Koreatown frequently. I also go downtown a lot. My favorite dive bar used to be downtown.

      Journalists don’t always hang out in the classiest places…. My best friend was an editor (male) who worked nights.

      • You have been in Westlake Park Seattle “quite a lot”? I don’t know MacArthur Park and I don’t think you know Westlake Park, so it’s going to be difficult for us to have a meaningful conversation using those parks as points of reference.

        • Heh. I thought he meant Westlake, a rough area of LA. I’ve been there.

          I’ve been to Seattle but I couldn’t tell you what areas I was in. It was a long time ago.

          • So if you haven’t been to Seattle recently, why oh why are you disparaging the veracity of eyewitness reports as to how things are there?

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