When the City Council Accidentally Legalized the Dance Halls
A lawyer finds that Seattle's council quietly repealed its dance-hall ordinances, and the halls reopen in defiance of the police chief — who can only threaten warrants until a new law is passed.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The New Zealand and Clancy at Monroe's dance halls opened last night. The street entrances to the halls were used, and nothing but soft drinks sold. Chief Rogers went to Frank Clancy and told him to shut up, but Clancy replied that until the chief got an ordinance on the matter he was going to run.
It seems that Clancy and Pearson went to an attorney yesterday and had him look up the status of affairs in relation to dance halls. The lawyer discovered that the council had, probably unintentionally, repealed the ordinances relative to dance halls except where intoxicating liquors are sold. On this understanding of the law the halls were opened last night. Clancy says he will close as soon as the council passes an ordinance covering the case. Rogers threatened to swear out warrants tomorrow if the halls kept open.
“Clancy replied that until the chief got an ordinance on the matter he was going to run.”
Tonight the fight is over bar licenses and nightlife zoning; in 1893 it was dance halls and the temperance line between "soft drinks" and liquor. The episode is a small classic of Seattle governance: a council writes a law with a hole in it, an enterprising operator drives a dance hall through the gap, and the police chief is left threatening warrants he cannot yet serve. The loophole, not the moral crusade, decides who gets to dance.
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