Dance, Dance, Dance -- Seattle Lines Up For Some Turns On Crowded Floors

Alexander Pope once held that true ease in human endeavor can be gained through dance. Havelock Ellis held that dance was the loftiest of arts because it is no translation of life, but life itself. The Book of Ecclesiastes held that just as there is a time to mourn, there is a time to dance.

Steve Wells, 33, co-owner of the downtown Seattle club Re-Bar, holds fliers.

On Friday and Saturday nights, Wells stands on the sidewalk at 11th Avenue and Howell Street, identifies those in line who seem not to fit his clientele ideal, then hands these people - Wells discriminates on actions, not clothing or skin color - a flier advertising directions to another, less esoteric dance club.

``I want no loudmouths. No prejudiced jerks. No bimbos that stand at the door and squeal, `Pleeeze, pleeeze let me in,' '' Wells says. ``I want a downtown club - not a gay bar, not a straight bar. I want a tolerant situation.

``Unfortunately, the weekends, I think, are just getting stupid.''

The philosophers were correct. The people want to dance. In fact, in Seattle, they want to do the lofty art so badly they've been willing to queue up at an obscure, alternative, negligibly advertised club whose owners charge a $3 cover but really wish many of you would get lost.

Not that Re-Bar is unworthy of suburbia's attention. Before Rolling Stone ever listed it among the best places in Seattle, Re-Bar had a line, on its opening night in January, that wrapped around its creaky building for three hours; Wells sold out of beer that night. It's just that drawing such an unsolicited crowd tends to point out the obvious about Seattle night life: When it comes to dance clubs, there just aren't enough.

We have restaurant bars, sports bars, sleepy wine-sipping hideaways, and enough wood-decor taverns to make your typical Jeep Cherokee-driving yuppie congratulate himself one more time for moving to the Pacific Northwest. But after 11 p.m., Seattle may get as limited as any city its size in the country.

At Belltown Club on First Avenue, 45-minute lines are not uncommon on weekends. Small packs of flirtatious men and women, most in their early to mid-20s, stand in darkness 50 feet from the door waiting to pay the $5 cover. Past the bouncers who coordinate security via walkie-talkie ear implants, patrons find other high-tech touches, such as eight video screens and a custom-made sound system to convey its '60s-'70s-'80s pop format.

Perhaps the most ambitious new club in Seattle, Belltown opened at the right time, in April, several months after nearby Watertown and Borderline went out of business amid lease disputes. (Borderline later opened at a more remote location in Pioneer Square but does not appear to have regained its former crowd from Belltown.)

Lines are less of an issue several blocks to the south of Belltown at Konstantin, though in no way does the club lack momentum. Styled in the mode of an underground New York club, Konstantin has forged a new niche in the Seattle dance scene, attracting a diverse social and ethnic crowd with a clean blend of atmosphere and up-beat jams. It's the attitudinal, see-and-be-seen kind of place that has drawn actor River Phoenix and the band members of UB40 on recent trips through town.

At the Hollywood Underground, a rhythm-and-blues club north of the Kingdome, a regular following mingles comfortably, as should be expected from a club that's been in business for five years. Soul II Soul, Bell Biv Devoe and extended versions of Bobby Brown rhythms move a crowd that reveals no pretensions about dancing - and will do so through 4 o'clock in the morning, even though alcohol cuts off before 2 a.m., as it does everywhere.

Next door to the Underground, Celebrity Bar and Grill serves a wonderful burger, er, music video. That is part of the masquerade required by law in night life here - that to serve liquor at a dance place, the establishment must resemble a restaurant. But if dining is the after-hours focus at Celebrity, Spinnaker's Barbecue and Grill on Shilshole Bay and Papaguyo's Cantina in Bellevue, then the Mariner Moose is actually a disco duck.

Which may be so.

But: You can bet a Moose would have reservations about revealing his glitter-ball soul, because for some peculiar reason nightclub dancing in Seattle has a scurrilous reputation, as if responsible after-hours behavior has come nowhere since Saturday Night Fever.

Add to the mix Neighbors, a predominantly gay club on Capitol Hill, and the Vogue, a hard-edge progressive scene on First Avenue, and you have the few spots that anchor the Seattle-area dance scene. Not a bad selection if you're the over-35 sort who falls asleep before the late news on most weekend nights, but slightly limiting to those interested in a vital, well-rounded night life.

Among predominantly black clubs, for instance, Hollywood Underground owner Ernie Arceo, 41, sees only one mainstream rival: Gooey's. And as a bar at the Sheraton, and one that's not locked into a musical format, Gooey's hardly rates as serious competition to the Underground.

``Seattle's not as cosmopolitan as people think it is,'' Arceo says. ``I would like to see more clubs. The competition only brings people out.''

While many young adults insist the scene could use a few more options, the state liquor control board doggedly maintains the status quo. Some of the thickest guidelines and restrictions in the country tend to keep ownership of clubs squeaky clean, and money-making potential to a minimum.

Beyond the standard fees and exacting personal, criminal, civil and financial checks that come with applying for a bar license, the state requires of a dance place that wants to sell cocktails:

That complete meals be offered, full cooking facilities be on the premises, and food be available at all times. Fry orders, sandwiches and salad items do not count.

That it have at least 30 percent of its sales, and at least $100 a day, in food.

That no less than 65 percent of the public area be used as regular dining space. This is why at Casa U Betcha (on First Avenue) and other ``restaurants,'' the bar area resembles a rugby scrum.

A liquor licensee also must forfeit certain rights. Enforcement officers can examine the contents of the owners' vehicles without search warrants, and peruse their business records.

The cumulative effect of these regulations is that while they may keep Al Capone out of business - or at least out of sight - they also discourage just about every entrepreneur with an innovative dance-club idea. Because liquor licenses are so tough to come by and so restrictive, and beer and wine do not generate much revenue, they may as well take their ideas to Portland or Vancouver, where local bar owners find the laws more in line with the norm of other big cities.

The next real test of the liquor board's flexibility comes soon, with the application by a group of investors to build a restaurant near the Space Needle that doubles as a (gasp!) multilevel dance club late at night. With a circular stairway, large dance floor and attention to details and service, Phantom, says consultant Trish Erickson, aspires to be the ``most upscale'' club in Greater Seattle. But under the liquor board's severe eye, Phantom would be fortunate to open by the end of the summer, if at all.

``If we had those (laws in other states), our nightlife would be totally different,'' says Konstantin Kolytiris, whose club offers only beer and wine. With the profit potential diminished, Kolytiris ventured minimal money and maximum labor on construction, creatively using copper sheets and metal tubes to give the club its understated, Roman-deco feel.

Quality disc jockeys keep Konstantin abuzz on a recent Thursday, as patrons respond to the weekly ``Disco Hell'' theme, popping off their stools to dance to the old Village People anthem, ``YMCA.'' Arms go up, in letter-form. Beers go down, on the elevated concrete-based tables.

``What am I going to do, spend $100,000 on a club to sell beer and wine?'' Kolytiris says. ``How much beer, at $1.75 a glass, can a person really drink in a night?''

More time on the dance floor, and less on the stool, may make for a more sober patron than at the ordinary sit-down bar. But where general society would seem to benefit - in regards to keeping drunken drivers off the road - the dance clubs again pay the price. Wells, the Re-Bar owner, says he's required to have $1 million in liability insurance because he has a dance floor.

A typesetter previously, Wells and his partner, Pit Kwiecinski, a former proofreader, also had to create their club on a skinny budget. There is almost a thrift-store feel to the place, and much of the decor was done by local artists that Wells also can thankfully call his friends. Atmosphere comes in inexpensive avant-garde forms: the multicolored, lighted arrow near the dance floor, the cross-dressing male bartender, the large cloth banners hanging on several walls.

An odd form of competitiveness exists between the various Seattle nightclubs. Discreetly, each owner disparages the relative merits of the other clubs . . . Belltown's too raucous . . . Celebrity's too predatory . . . Re-Bar's lacks that energetic buzz, and so on. But, as Wells says, ``I don't think of my competitors as competitors, but rather places to go on my night off.''

As desperate and fleeting as the nightclub business can be, many owners are glad to have the company, kind of in the way the Tacoma Stars pull for the San Diego Sockers because it's good for indoor soccer.

In fact, when Wells went about piecing together his club, which would draw significantly from the gay population, he received support and help from the management at Neighbors and two other predominantly gay clubs, Timberline and Off-Ramp.

``They all acknowledge that we've got to get a good nightclub scene going here,'' Wells says. ``It sparks so many things. You meet so many kinds of people that you wouldn't have met in college.

``There's such an attitude in Seattle to be just like everyone else. For the most part, I think those people are bored.

``This is becoming a big city. Come on, Seattle. It's good for the economy.''

TOM FARREY IS A REPORTER FOR THE SEATTLE TIMES SPORTS SECTION.