Erik Nicholson had reason to worry when word started circulating that the Pac 40 Lounge & Restaurant would reopen.
Until police and code inspectors shut it down this summer, it was dysfunction junction for the area around 40th Street and Pacific Avenue in Tacoma.
“This bar, when open, was a magnet for drug dealers and prostitutes,” Nicholson said. “Many of us, myself included, were repeatedly approached by dealers and prostitutes at night when returning to our homes. Our neighborhood association worked for months with the city to address these concerns.”
He’s right about the harassment, but off by half a decade on the neighbors’ involvement. Lincoln District groups worked on the problem with Tacoma Police Department Community Liaison Officer Bert Hayes for about six years.
They picketed. They took license numbers. They fired up their barbecue grills and spent an afternoon enjoying burgers and assuring bar patrons they were being watched.
Hayes, now a detective, told the proprietor how to discourage illegal activity in the bar, behind the bar, in front of the bar. Police sent extra patrols.
And yet the number of bar-related calls for service didn’t drop.
“There have been fights, shots fired in and around the bar and lots and lots of drug dealing,” said TPD community liaison officer Don Williams. “It affected the neighborhood. Oh, it killed it. It brought in that whole drug culture, and, of course, they bring their friends, and that type of person is committing crimes in a five-to-six-block-radius around it.”
In the spring, members of TPD’s drug unit bought illegal drugs inside the Pac 40 and had reasonable cause for a search warrant.
Then Tacoma, county and state officials collaborated the heck out of that bar. They gathered a team including state Liquor Control Board agents, county health inspectors, and city police, tax and license and code enforcement officers.
On June 27, they executed the search warrant. They arrested 11 people, all at once, in one bar. Usually, you need a whole neighborhood to yield that many wanted people.
The building and the business failed health and safety codes.
“It was shut down that night,” Williams said.
The plywood went up right away, but it took weeks for police calls to drop. Old clients kept coming by, staring, dumbfounded, at the boarded Pac 40. They sniffed around the neighborhood for a new source. Tavern and business owners told them to get lost.
Apparently they have.
“The crime and other issues have just fallen off the map,” Williams said.
Still, Nicholson and other organizers, including Sally Budack of the Lincoln LAWGS, were anxious when they saw butcher paper on the Pac 40’s windows.
Officer Williams paid a visit and likes what he’s seen of Mark Myers.
Myers, a longshoreman for 23 years, has bought a couple of bars, upgraded them, operated them without infractions and sold them.
“This came up,” Myers said of the Pac 40, “and it was really cheap.”
He applied last week to have the liquor license switched over to him and his partner. He’s working out the last details of the lease. He has started cleaning and painting.
“I want to make it a nice sports bar,” he said.
He plans to open at 9 a.m., serving hearty breakfasts, then traditional lunches.
“We’ll have different nights – steak night, pork chops, roasts, maybe,” Myers said.
Good food is a big deal, Williams said. It brings good business.
But the Pac 40 will need more. Williams advised lighting the back and sides, and installing surveillance cameras.
Myers has a check-every-ID policy. He’s asked Williams for a list of troublemakers, and he plans to ban them. He also plans to keep soliciting ideas.
“I’m going to go to the neighborhood meetings, meet some people and hear what they think,” Myers said.
“Overall, it looks like a good plan,” said a cautious Budack.
You can bet she, Williams and Nicholson will be checking on it. They know if Myers succeeds, the Pac 40 neighborhood stands to wins.
That would be a nice change.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677 kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/street
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