THIS ARTICLE, WHICH POSTED AT 8:00 THURSDAY MORNING, HAS BEEN UPDATED.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Thursday, City Attorney Ann Davison rolled out legislation to establish two new Stay Out of Drug Areas, also known as SODA zones. People charged with violating drug laws, including the recently passed law that empowered Davison to charge people with a misdemeanor for using or possessing illegal drugs in public, could be banished indefinitely from these areas.

“We want to protect our residents, our workers, our visitors, all who come to the city of Seattle,” Davison said at a press conference at City Hall on Thursday. “And it is time that we do some action that will help to disrupt those who want to come and create criminal enterprise in the form of drug use and possession and all the activity that is associated with it.”

Davison called the legislation, which does not come with or call for any additional services for drug users, an “exit ramp” for people “in the throes of addiction.”

“People come to visit Seattle, and they don’t understand why the rest of us are walking by. We are not walking by anymore,” Davison said. “… Because we say, we think you’re worth the effort. And we’re going to make the effort. And this means that this is an exit ramp for you.”

Seattle tried SODAs and similar strategies to ban people from going into certain parts of the city during the period when Mark Sidran was city attorney, issuing thousands of orders against people who were banned from setting foot in certain parts of the city, even if they were not breaking any other law. The orders contributed to tremendous racial disparities in the jail and criminal legal system during that period, and did not “clean up” or otherwise eradicate longtime “hot spots” for drug activity, including Third Avenue downtown and the area around 12th and Jackson in Little Saigon.

The legislation, if passed, would not require a person to be convicted of any crime; instead, people who are simply accused of violating a drug law or committing another misdemeanor with a “nexus” to “illegal drug activity” could be prohibited from setting foot inside a SODA zone as a condition of pretrial release from jail. The proposal would also allow judges to order a person to stay out of the new SODA areas as part of a person’s sentence after they’re convicted.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

Asked about the legality of banning people from parts of the city before they’re convicted of any crime, Davison said that other cities in the area with SODA laws have already passed similar legislation.

The goal, according to the legislation, is to address overdoses and reduce violent crime and property crime around “open-air drug trafficking markets.” (The phrase “open-air” appears five times in the preamble to the legislation, which is silent on the problem of overdoses and crime among people who use illegal drugs in their homes.)

In a statement, the organization responsible for the LEAD diversion program and other programs designed to assist people with addiction and involvement in the criminal justice system, Purpose Dignity Action, said the “most concerning” aspect of SODA bans is that they bar people from “otherwise legal activity”—in this case, simply existing in an area.

“If someone is committing a crime other than a SODA violation, they can already be arrested for that crime,” the PDA said. “SODA enforcement only adds something if there is no evidence that any actual crime is being committed. And that sends a really troubling message to individuals who receive these orders — that it doesn’t matter what they are doing, they themselves are the problem, even if they’re abiding by all laws.”

Responding meaningfully to large concentrations of drug use and other illegal activity, the PDA continued, would involve “activation of the space, the presence of guardians (as described in the City Auditor report two weeks ago), optimal coordination of law enforcement with care providers, and addressing the actual situation of individuals encountered there.”

Currently, state law allows cities to restrict “known drug traffickers”—defined as anyone who has been convicted of two drug-related crimes—from specific parts of the city.

In its previous iteration, the people barred from setting foot in designated SODA zones were typically convicted of drug loitering—a misdemeanor that involved “solicit[ing], induc[ing], entic[ing], or procur[ing] another to engage in unlawful conduct contrary” to state drug laws. The drug loitering law was overturned in 2020, by a unanimous City Council vote, after the city’s Reentry Work Group found that it contributed to the “criminalization of poverty” and disproportionate use of the criminal legal system against Black and brown people.

If the legislation passes, the first SODA areas will cover 22 blocks of downtown Seattle, including Westlake Park, plus a wide swath in the International District bordered by I-5 and Rainier Ave. S on the east and west and I-90 and S. King St. on the north and south.

If someone charged with, or convicted of, a drug crime violated a SODA order by entering one of the off-limits zones, they could be charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000. This potential penalty would apply equally to people convicted of a crime, such as using drugs in public, and those who have merely been charged, but who have not pled or been found guilty.

As written, the proposed law could allow someone to be found not guilty of drug possession, for example, but be charged with, and convicted of, a gross misdemeanor—a more significant crime, with harsher penalties—for being inside an area where they are prohibited as a condition of release from jail.

Council President Sara Nelson, a longtime advocate for harsher penalties for drug users as well as abstinence-based addiction treatment, said, “This is not the War on Drugs,” arguing that that war involved felonies that were illegitimate as opposed to the gross misdemeanor Davison’s proposal would create.

“We’re talking about misdemeanor, we’re talking about gross misdemeanor, and the War on Drugs threw people in jail on trumped-up felonies for years and years and years,” Nelson said. “And so efforts to conflate the two, I believe that that is a that’s a false equivalency and we really do have to break out of that tendency to go there.”

The proposal allows a couple of exceptions: People can ride on public transit through a SODA area as long as they don’t get off, and they can go to court hearings and meetings with their attorneys inside the areas. The previous SODA rules laid out a list of explicit potential exceptions, allowing people to go inside areas where they were otherwise banned for medical care, drug treatment, social services, employment, or if they lived in the area.

Proponents of the new law said they were careful to create areas where no services exist; however, this is untrue. The Seattle Indian Health Board is inside the 12th and Jackson SODA, and Operation Nightwatch is just outside its boundaries; We Deliver Care operates on Third Avenue inside the downtown SODA. Additionally, the areas include numerous affordable housing buildings, medical offices, and religious institutions, as well as places of employment. The Downtown Seattle Association’s Metropolitan Improvement District employs formerly homeless people inside the downtown SODA.

Davison said a judge could grant exceptions when they issue a SODA order, and her proposal allows people to ask for “modifications” on a case by case basis, via “a process by which the person subject to the order can provide relevant testimony or other evidence in support of the request.” For people struggling with severe addiction —like those who tend to use drugs outdoors, instead of inside their homes— it’s not hard to imagine how collecting testimony and gathering witnesses for a court hearing might be a challenge.