White Center Now: The blog about White Center

Is this related to the police near 17th and Barton? We see lights but don’t hear sirens…

Was this fatal shooting at the Taradise Bar??

Business owners in that area should petition to have that bar removed immediately. There has been issues with it from the get go.

It’s Taradise Cafe and it serves all three meals. It also has a bar . Tara worked years to own her own establishment. Are you saying every establishment should close before trouble starts? What time would that be because I see problems at all times of the day and so do police, in West Seattle and White Center?

I had a nice breakfast at Taradise,
Rabble-rousing trouble-maker that I am, all crazy and violent with my toast and soft eggs.

Marianne, the name error was likely by a news outlet that is not from this area – KCSO had it wrong in its initial tweet and its news release (which I cut and pasted verbatim in a comment above); we didn’t repeat the error because we live and work in this general area and we knew it was an error. Please take out-of-area news outlets with the proverbial grain of salt. They get neighborhood and business names wrong *a lot*. (We covered a crime in West Seattle’s Puget Ridge area the other day; it was picked up by regional outlets because SPD put it on its “blotter,” and hours later we heard an anchor refer to the area in a short version of the story as “Phinney Ridge.”)

That is exactly what KCSO said. I interpreted it as, people scattered pretty fast. It was described as a “chaotic scene” initially, and deputies were giving orders to do their best to keep people there until they could interview possible witnesses. The “minutes” is from the KCSO news release – since we had already been covering it for hours when it was sent to us and other media by Sgt. Jason Houck after 5 am, I didn’t publish the news release verbatim, but here it is for anyone interested:

Shortly after 1am on January 6th, 2018, King County Sheriff 911 received multiple calls and reports of a shooting outside Club Taradise in the 9800 blk of 16th Ave SW. Callers reported hearing multiple shots and seeing two men lying in the parking lot of the club.

Deputies arrived within minutes and found a 51yoa male, unresponsive, with gunshot wounds to his upper torso and head area. That man was pronounced dead at the scene.

The second victim was found in the same parking lot and also had gunshot wounds to his upper torso area. Medics arrived shortly after Deputies and were able to get the 2nd victim stable enough to be transported to Harborview Hospital where he was rushed to surgery.

At this point, the few witnesses that remained on scene when Deputies and Major Crimes Detectives arrived are cooperating, but little is known about the suspect or the events that led up to the shooting.


Detectives believe that the two victims knew each other and that they got into some sort of verbal and physical altercation with an unknown age, race, or build male just prior to the shooting. Their investigation will be ongoing.

It is unknown at this time if a shooting that occurred around 3:30 AM, just North in Seattle is related to this shooting. Detectives from KCSO will look into that as part of their investigation.

Good one Liz. We need to support

They should close down taradise. Too much trouble stems from there.

I’ve heard so much about these shootings and fights at this place. It’s hard not to wonder. I’m sure it’s being run by decent people, but there is definitely a problem there.Find out what it is and fix it!

What about the smoke shop across the street? There are always cars pulled to the side blocking the street and parking waiting as people run in and out. Why is that ok with the sheriff? It’s constant and annoying to both walk and drive by. Obviously something is going on there.

Sarah, Could not agree with you more. You have to be a blind man not to see whats happening at that smoke shop. And with the nay sayers on here there was a stabing of a young mother in Admiral should we shut down the Admerial area. There several shootings at Alki every summer should we close Alki during the summer.Bad people do bad things and they don.t care where they do it. Go Tara

I think if they haven’t yet. The owner should look into hiring some off duty police for security at night.

Start 86ing the trouble makers use the state’s tresspassing laws to keep them out.

Make the restaurant a no firearms allowed location other than police of course

C’mon people… it is Rat City… standards need to be appropriately LOW for such a terrible place.

This witch hunt mentality would have probably thrown-out Marv’s Broiler decades before its demise.

When all you can offer as a nearby community are porn shops, tacky bars and pho noodle houses, then of course you are going to rate only the scurge of Rat City.

Tara herself is a nice lady, and a one time mainstay of the former Charlestown Cafe on California Avenue. There is nothing wrong with her as an individual.

RIP Paul, u were a great person

Hey bob you sound like a raceist with your coments there are shootings every sommer on alki. acording to your view alki draws in a bad segment so alki should be shut down. Bell town draws a bad segment so shut down bell twon bars. Downtown west seattlle hasre share of violance and shootings so we should shut it down. Taradise does the best they can to vieod this violance. But how do you stop bad people from doing bad things at your place? With out profiling it can,t be done. So as to your statment how do you know theres a bad element with out profiling. And as we know to profile in seattle your are a racist

How am I a racist? You brought race into it. Install a metal detector at the door and have a bouncer. If they have a gun they can’t come in. Hire armed security to have a presence. Close at midnight like the other places. These are ideas off the top of my head. Ive never been to Taradise or seen the type of people who hang there. It’s not one bar in Alki causing problems. Show me articles where there were multiple shootings and fatalities at the same bar at Alki? Also you can’t compare Belltown and White Center. Belltown has a much higher concentration of people in the area and bars versus white center. It’s comparing a horse to an apple.

hey bob, neither shooting people are connecting to taradise took place inside the establishment, so keeping guns outside wouldn’t solve the particular problem we are facing, which is guns being used to settle altercations that start on the street.

Has anyone asked for violent crime data in White Center and had it normalized by population? It would seem like a good way to leverage additional resources in the area.

I’m a 50YO business owner and my wife is a 55YO elementary school teacher and there is no other place in White Center that we would go to. Taradise is the ONLY truly inclusive bar in the area. They don’t care if you’re straight, gay, black, white, can’t speak a word of English, ghetto or a Trump supporter. At no time have we ever felt unsafe inside. Outside is a different story…troublemakers are just outside causing trouble…there is a smokeshop/crackhouse across the street. There is major drug dealing and prostitution a block away and not a cop to be found. You can’t blame Taradise for neighborhood problems that have existed for the 18 years that I’ve been in the area. The REAL problem is the complete lack of law enforcement in the area…if there was a police presence in the area, these issues would disappear overnight.

I did not do a full comparison. I just compared what was relevant: one main street and several small streets, the layout. Meaning all the bar action is contained on one street. The former was comparing data without the proper statistical analysis and weight, there is a difference. Michele also echoed the idea.

Just because a city has a had a past in being “rough” and “gritty” does not mean it can not evolve and grow into something else. Should we just say, “Another fatal shooting, oh that silly WC will always be WC!”? Maybe WC is an armpit and will always be one, you could be right, but there is nothing wrong with trying to come up with solutions to solve these problems.

If you’ve lived in/near WC for the past 10 plus years and are accustomed and like the old vibe or fit into the “rough” and “gritty” I can see how you don’t want change. However, times are changing, people are moving to this area that are young families/young professionals and are concerned about safety and want change.

“And Bob, in case you’ve been in a vacuum these last many years, THE LAW already says: “if you are in immediate possession of a gun, you can’t come in” (to a bar).” The law also says you cannot murder…these people who commit these crimes do not abide by the law, so it has to be enforced by other means (metal detector, pat down at door like they do at other places in Seattle, do not stay open to 2am, etc.)

“Once Tara’s customers exit her bar, and return to their vehicles to retrieve their guns, it’s outside of Tara’s realm of responsibility. (If she sends them out too drunk to drive, and they do, then it is her responsibility, because she {or her employees} had something directly to do with their condition.)” Agreed about the drunk driving BUT her bar is ATTRACTS a certain type of crowd, there is no denying. Large portion of the crowd just hangs out in the parking lot of Taradise, so it is still on her property. Second, nobody has commented or provided a rebuttal regarding why is this not happening for Beer Star patrons, Noble Barton partons, etc. Because going back to the point, her bar attracts a certain type of crowd. Not all bad people, but diff bad seeds. Two fatal shootings outside your bar within a year in such a small area..that isn’t by chance.

I just did a Google search of other bars in WC that are open to 2am, there are only a few and only one had multiple shootings tied to their bar. Do the research.

Glad it is an improvement over Marv’s but it still has more room for improvement.

City Rat, you are absolutely wrong about people not wanting change in White Center. That’s ridiculous. I’ve lived nearby for 12 years, and it has been slow to evolve until just the last couple years. It’s changing, and it’s changing fast. And people like that.

Saying you just have to live with it since it’s white center sounds childish and close-minded.

White Center definitely doesn’t need City Rat as a spokesperson.

Hi. I can’t speak for other media but it’s been rather difficult to get information on this. We checked in with the King County Sheriff’s Office daily for three days before we finally got a response, which was that there was nothing new. The Medical Examiner’s Office never provided the first victim’s name in their regular updates, which we check daily. Anyway, a TV station reports tonight that the second victim in last weekend’s shooting has died. I won’t be able to confirm that until Tuesday. But here’s their report, which includes a GoFundMe account for the man who died at the scene, if you would like to help: http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/two-men-killed-in-white-center-shooting/683745714

P.S. As for the Top Hat incident, we were told that they were staked out looking for someone but did not find him/her. We didn’t hear about it until we saw Metro bulletins that buses were being routed off 4th, with no obvious explanation, so we went out to look; KCSO at the scene wouldn’t comment and the media relations officer said information wouldn’t be available until afterward. We didn’t get a response for two days.

LW,

I already stated clearly that the aforementioned people “want change” in White Center. You need only walk three blocks in a straight line in White Center to identify them. (they’ll approach you, so you don’t have to wonder which ones they are)

Of course you’re going to stand-out as someone in White Center who CAN walk 3 blocks in a straight line.

White Center is not “changing fast”. If one supplied you with a map of White Center circa 1970 you would laugh, and then cry at how very similar it is. (Having clear glass windows on “The Epicure” doesn’t make for much change)

Astroland may be gone, and yes, there may be a new library, but central White Center is the same as it has always been.

Debate could rage forever as to whether Marv’s Broiler or Taradise is/was more reputable, but so far it seems a toss-up.