Is sprinkler law best solution?

There used to be a stage in the backroom at the Jules Maes Saloon in Georgetown.

Bands that weren't big enough for the Croc or the Showbox would play to small crowds; or acoustic trios would tuck into the deep hollow of the front window. And the place felt like it must have back in the 1880s, when it was one of Seattle's first bars.

Then one night in 2003, in a club in Rhode Island, a fire started during a show by the band Great White. Pyrotechnics ignited foam soundproofing behind the stage, and when the smoke cleared, 100 people were dead.

The incident spurred state Rep. Geoff Simpson, a Democrat from Covington, to co-sponsor a bill requiring live-music bars in Washington to have "fire suppression systems" that can cost tens of thousands of dollars to install.

The law — enacted by only two other states, Rhode Island and Massachusetts — takes effect Dec. 1: Have sprinklers in open spaces larger than 350 square feet, or stop the music.

Jules Maes owner John LeMaster doesn't have that kind of money. He just made big improvements, including a new kitchen. So he boarded up his stage with drywall, and will use his once-rocking backroom as a very quiet office.

The sprinkler law continued to close in this week, when Marcus Lalario, owner of The War Room on Capitol Hill, announced he was shutting down Nov. 30. He blames many things — taxes, nightlife regulations and the expiration of his liquor license.

But right up there was the new sprinkler law aimed at older clubs.

(Since 2006, sprinklers have been required in new nightclubs, restaurants and bars where the enclosed "fire area" exceeds 5,000 square feet, where occupancy is more than 100, and where exits are on a separate floor from the "fire area.")

"It's $20,000 just to connect water to the city's service," Lalario said. "If they were so concerned with safety, why not give a discounted rate to established businesses that are grandfathered in?"

It's a song I've gotten used to hearing in Seattle, where nightlife has been treated like a sullen teenager up to no good. Smoking bans. Undercover busts. And now this.

"Other than Great White, is there an epidemic?" LeMaster asked. "Are bars just bursting into flames all over town?"

Simpson is a firefighter, so he's seen what sprinklers can save. I'll give him that.

But we already have laws that regulate capacity, smoking and exit access — laws that are followed by bar owners, who want safety not only for their patrons, but for their employees and themselves.

"We're businessmen," Lalario said. "We're not young kids throwing some illegal raves."

The new law isn't just a loss for bar owners, but for anyone who loves live music.

If scrappy bands can't play in scrappy bars, well, we're not the Seattle we used to be, or that we're known to be by the rest of the world.

"If you're a local band, if you're the next Nirvana, you're going to be out of Seattle," Lemaster said. "Bands don't start at Benaroya. You work your way up, and they just took away every bar that gave them that avenue.

"They took away the farm team."

He's right; Pearl Jam started at the Offramp, now El Corazon. And the Beatles started underground, in a former air-raid shelter called the Cavern Club.

"Surely there's an easier way to keep people from meeting the same fate as the people in Rhode Island," said Pete Hanning, who owns the Red Door in Fremont and co-chairs the government affairs committee for the Washington Restaurant Association.

I tried to reach Simpson to ask him about the idea of reducing fees or grandfathering in older businesses like Lemaster's. But he was out of town, and out of reach.

So Dec. 1 will be a day for singing the blues. But if you're at Jules Maes, it will be without accompaniment — LeMaster won't even be allowed a piano.

"When you get used to not having live music," he said, then sighed. "That's just sad."

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

Oh, to have been there.