The Seattle Nightlife and Music Association (SNMA) is a coalition of music, night club, and bar interests formed to educate elected officials, civic and community leaders, and the media on the serious issues facing the music and nightlife industry in Seattle.

• Provide our customers a safe and vibrant nightlife.
• Protect music venue, bar, and club owner's rights.
• Respond to proposals which impact our industry.
• Support our local communities.
• Promote responsible music venue, bar, and club management.

Over 80 people representing nightclubs, bars, restaurants, musicians and promoters attended the September 14 General Membership meeting of
SeattleNMA. If you were unable to attend, we are forwarding the minutes from the meeting for your review. Please feel free to send them on to anyone you feel might be interested in these issues. Click here to find the PowerPoint presentation which was used at the meeting. This presentation and website provides a good overview of the organization, outlines issues of concern to our industry, and other essential information. We will keep the site updated regularly to keep you informed of emerging issues.

Membership Recruitment
Included in this update email a SeattleNMA membership form. While we are still a young organization, we have already have a very active group of restaurant, bar and club owners. In order for us to be effective at the local and state level we need to demonstrate to elected officials that we have a robust and diverse membership representing all aspects of Seattle’s vibrant nightlife. If you have not already become a member, please do so and complete the form and mail it to SeattleNMA. Also please forward this email to anyone who you think might be interested in hearing about us and becoming involved.

Update on the Issues:
Mayor's Nightclub Ordinance.
As of the time of the writing of this email, we are still waiting for an updated version of the ordinance. As you may recall, SeattleNMA provided detailed comments -- we have posted our edited version of the ordinance here (pdf).

Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD)
We have had a number of complaints from restaurants owners on DPD's efforts to categorize them as “drinking establishments” thereby making them subject to additional regulatory burdens and the threat of making them sign Good Neighbor Agreements. SeattleNMA is interested in working with affected businesses to address this issue with the city.

Sprinkler Requirements
As many of you know, the State passed legislation in 2005 to require all Nightclubs – defined as any establishment with live music or DJ, has as it’s primary source of revenue as either the sales of beverages of any kind for consumption on the premises, or cover charges, or both; and has an occupancy load of 100 or more – to install an automatic sprinkler system by December 1, 2007. This applies to all existing and new clubs.

This law will have an enormous impact on our industry and will likely drive several establishments out of business. At our September 14 meeting, this was one of the most often brought up concerns with club owners.

As a result, we are forming a SeattleNMA Sprinkler Sub-committee to develop a legislative and legal strategy to try to address this issue. We are interested in hearing from all nightclubs affected by this law. If you will be impacted by this requirement, please respond to this email and indicate if you would like to participate and/or be kept informed of our efforts on this critical issue.

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© 2009 Seattle Nightlife and Music Association | info@seattleNMA.org