Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell paid a visit to the Alki community on Friday May 16 to tour three businesses and have a candid, off the record conversation with people from the area. 

His first stop was at Natalies on Alki where he made a bubble tea, pressed some sugar cane into juice and spoke briefly with the owner Vinnie Lee and Manager Ellie Parker.

Next up was a visit to Fire Taco with owner George Salivar's brothers Adrian and Sergio where the Mayor sampled some soup and a taco. The brothers expressed their dismay over the Route 50 bus stop which takes a break directly in front of their business, as it has for many years. The Mayor explained that this was a matter better taken up with King County Metro and not a city issue.

The brothers spoke about their security cameras and late night crime issues. The Mayor  responded briefly talking about about the Real Time Crime Center saying  "If you want, you can allow us with your permission to pipe into it and we're constantly watching downtown at our command center and that way we don't have to come and bug you every time. It's new technology, other cities are doing it. We're just going to start it next month. And we do it on a consent basis. It's already on a pilot....So, we think this is going to be a game changer."

The third stop was at the West Seattle Arcade where he met owners Matt and Elyssa Cichy and tried his hand at some games including a basketball arcade game and a full VR system. Elyssa said,"We hear from our neighbors that everything clears out when when they clear out the park at night, but then everybody comes back later." She went on to say, "One of the goals for us being here is to like give young people things to do. And I feel like I don't know for sure, but I feel like we've been a big part of the positive change down here."

The Mayor closed out his visit with short community meeting at Christo's attended by District 1 Council member Rob Saka and Alki neighbors. Saka answered questions from the crowd. The owner of Blue Moon Burgers asked if they could close the beach for a period of time in summer, noting that racing vehicles were a problem The crowd did not like the idea. Illegal food vendors that have no health permits have been prevalent during the summer months and asked if the Mayor could look into it. Jon Jainga, head of the Park Rangers noted that the park would close at 10:30pm this summer.