Liquor license approved for Bon Bon

Katherine Fritchie got the news Tuesday at 4:21 p.m.

Her precision about the time gives you a sense of how important it was to her: The Washington Liquor Control Board had granted Bon Bon, her new lounge and eatery in the Garland Theater building, the green light to serve liquor.

Fritchie’s new venture had been hung up for months, as it waited for a final decision about its liquor license application. Bon Bon fell into a kind of gray area in the liquor laws – which seem oriented to allow smaller beer bars or larger nightclubs or restaurants, but not to fit what Fritchie’s trying to do. Bon Bon will have around 35 seats, which is fewer than the liquor control board’s definition of a nightclub, and Fritchie intends to have some food prepared off-site – which puts it outside the strict definition of a restaurant.

It seemed like it might be a case where the letter of the law squeezed out its spirit.

But this is the part where the Liquor Control Board does the right thing. After the application was bumped up the chain of command – and after a lot of delays that seem kind of hard to credit – the board gave Fritchie a license.

She has an interim permit until Aug. 5, by which time the regular license should arrive.

She’s not yet sure of an opening date, but look for a cool new spot in the Garland neighborhood for a drink and a bite, sometime in the near future.

‘Hurricane of hell’

The University of Washington has hired an interim president while it looks for a permanent replacement for the departing Mark Emmert.

I wrote a while back that we might be on the verge of crossing the million-dollar mark for a college president here in Washington, given that Emmert was pulling down a total package of more than $900,000 a year – and given that there has been no direction but up for administrative salaries at public colleges for a long time.

Whether that happens remains to be seen. But the UW regents on Friday picked Phyllis Wise, the provost and executive vice president, to be the interim leader. Wise is a hotshot researcher into women’s health, and she’ll be the first woman and the first Asian-American to serve in the top spot at U-Dub.

She’ll earn $621,000 in compensation.

That’s no indication of what the permanent president will earn, of course. But if there was ever a time when salaries at the top were ripe to be scaled back – or even merely leveled off – now would be it.

As state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, told the Seattle Times: “We are entering the hurricane of hell, financially. The entire family of higher education is under awful and ugly and severe pressure due to this historic budget crisis.”

A dissent

I wrote about the Bonner County GOP’s objection to the use of “fiesta” in the theme of the county fair. In reporting that column, I tried unsuccessfully to reach someone who would defend the anti-fiesta view.

So I thought I’d print this dissent, posted on our website by someone going by “oneandone”:

“Leave it to a liberal rag and a sarcastic, sanctimonious Shawn to misdirect the point of requiring English-only for conversation and communication with the borders of the USA. No where did anyone else use the pejorative term ‘impurity’. Granted, our language is vibrant and enriched by words taken from different cultures but the syntax holding them together needs to be singular and common. If you want to live in this country use ENGLISH – not spanish. Bilingual efforts only confuse children and immigrants. Those who LEGALLY immigrated to this country through Ellis Island learned the language and thrived because of it. Get off your high horse Shawn and stop promoting the destruction of our society by encouraging bilingualism. Why not Japanese, Chinese, German, French, yada, yada, yada? Pretty soon road signs will be 10’ square.”