Mayor targets club's liquor license

Mayor Greg Nickels asked the state Liquor Control Board on Friday to suspend immediately the liquor license of Tabella, a Belltown nightclub.

Nickels cited a July 2 shooting down the street in which a bystander was wounded as the most serious incident yet.

He said the club posed a risk to public safety because of its "history of violent incidents" and its popularity among drunken drivers citywide in the past nine months.

"We met with them in March and we met with them in June and it's not getting any better," said Nickels' aide Regina LaBelle.

Kauser Pasha, Tabella's owner, called the action by Nickels unfair, the allegations inaccurate and a convenient way of focusing attention away from the city's failure to expand police presence on the streets at night.

"Who's next?" Pasha said. "You think the shooting is going to stop? It's somebody else's club next."

The mayor succeeded last year in making a case to the board for suspending the liquor licenses of Larry's Nightclub in Pioneer Square and Mr. Lucky Lounge and Grill on Lower Queen Anne.

Citing those examples, Marianne Bichsel, Nickels' communications director, said, "We have to develop this big case of a lot of incidents where people are getting hurt before we can get the Liquor Control Board to take action."

Pasha pointed out that the incidents at Larry's and Mr. Lucky occurred inside their premises, whereas most of the incidents at Tabella that Nickels referred to occurred outside, including the July 2 shooting.

According to Nickels' letter, the shooting happened at about 1 a.m. "when a fight involving 20-25 males in Tabella's parking lot ended in gunfire" and wounded the woman.

Scott Robertson, a former deputy sheriff who was working security at Tabella that night, says several descriptions of what goes on at the club have been distorted and blown out of proportion.

On July 2, he said, he heard gunshots about a block south near the parking lot north of another club, Venom, which was closed, and he ran to help the woman who had been shot.

A 21-year-old Navy seaman from Everett who was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting had been ejected from the club earlier that evening for his behavior, Robertson said.

"It's ironic to me that the officers we interact with on a regular basis tell us we do a great job but apparently that doesn't get back to the higher-ups," Robertson said.

Days before that shooting, Tabella security called police after being threatened by a man they had a trespass order against. The officer on the scene wrote this in his report:

"This nightclub does a very good job of patrolling the area just outside the club. They do their best to maintain order and have their customers disperse the area when the club closes."

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com