Owner Kyriakos Kyrkos is making an attempt to get his liquor license renewed so he can reopen the Mr. Lucky bar across the street from KeyArena on First Avenue North, according to Steve Robertson, an aide to Kyrkos' lawyer.
A deal was in the works to sell the bar to new owners from Belltown, and extensive remodeling work was done inside the business, according to one neighborhood source.
But the deal fell through, said Roberston, who called the Magnolia News to see if this reporter would be willing to testify on Kyrkos' behalf at an Oct. 16 hearing before an administrative law judge.
That's not going to happen, and Kyrkos is also facing opposition from the office of Mayor Greg Nickels and from State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles.
Kyrkos has sounded out the neighborhood about the plan, according to Margaret Irvine from the Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce. Representative from the Chamber and the Uptown Alliance met with him on Friday morning, she said. "We listened to him about an hour."
Kyrkos, who has declined to comment to the Magnolia News, wants to open a sports bar if he can get his liquor license renewed, but his real goal is to sell the club, Irvine said.
The liquor license was suspended for six months last April following the shooting of three people in the bar, and the suspension expires Oct. 23, said Susan Reams, a spokeswoman from the state Liquor Control Board.
But the Mr. Lucky liquor license is up for renewal at the end of October, and the Liquor Control Board wants to permanently revoke the license, she said.
So does the mayor, who wrote residents in Lower Queen Anne an Oct. 2 letter warning them of the latest development at the troubled hotspot and noting that the bar could reopen as soon as Oct. 24.
"The city has let the Washington State Liquor Control Board know that it does not believe the Mr. Lucky should be allowed to reopen," Nickels wrote.
So the city has filed an official objection to the renewal of the license, requested that the Liquor Control Board extend the license suspension past the 180-day period, and has asked that a hold be placed on renewing the license. However, Reams said that, by state law, a six-month suspension of a liquor license can't be extended.
Sen. Kohl-Welles has written the chairman of the Liquor Board with the same kinds of objections. "If Mr. Lucky is allowed to reopen, I am concerned that a serious public safety threat may resume," she wrote.
Kohl-Welles notes that the Liquor Board will present its case at the Oct. 16 hearing for permanently revoking the liquor license for Mr. Lucky. "Furthermore," she adds, "the assistant attorney general, and the Liquor Control Board, along with the Seattle Police Department, have assembled overwhelming evidence to support a permanent revocation of the license."
While Queen Anne Chamber is primarily concerned with the safety of the neighborhood businesses and residents, the business organization has taken a more measured response.
"If it turns out KK (Kyriakos Kyrkos) remains the owner of the establishment, we insist he work with the Uptown Alliance and the Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce and other bar owners of Uptown to get some sort of police or security presence on the weekends to help ensure that this area does not see any more violence," the Chamber said in a statement.
Irvine notes that there is a limit to what the Chamber can do. "What we want to happen has nothing to do with what can happen legally," she said.
The liquor license might be a moot point, according to Marty McOmber, a spokesman for the mayor. McOmber said it's his understanding that if a sport bar doesn't work out, Kyrkos might try to open a strip club, instead.
Strip clubs don't sell alcohol, and putting one in at the Mr. Lucky location falls within the dispersal requirements city council member Peter Steinbrueck has proposed for such establishments, McOmber added.[[In-content Ad]]
