West Seattle Health Club VP ‘fed up’ after RV-caused fire
Oct 20, 2018, 6:51 AM
An RV plunged into the West Seattle Health Club in the early morning of Oct. 17, starting a fire that caused $300,000 worth of damage. (KIRO 7)
(KIRO 7)
Dan Lehr, vice president of the West Seattle Health Club, is fed up.
He told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that eight to 10 RVs have made themselves at home in front of the business over the last 12 months, while another handful show up quite often.
“The problem has become really critical for the past year,” he said. “Every week, I can’t tell you how many hours I spend contacting the mayor’s office, using the Find it Fix it app, calling [the Seattle Police Department] — basically, all the avenues that I’ve been told to use, I’ve used, and really to no avail.”
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SPD — which Lehr dubbed the “glorified meter maids” — puts red tags on the vehicles ordering them to move, but that does not ensure that they leave the neighborhood.
“They just go a block down the street,” Lehr said. “And so the cycle begins — it’s just a big shuffle.”
It is not just the illegal RVs’ presence that bothers Lehr, however — he said that the occupants of the vehicles commit crimes that have health club patrons in fear.
“The occupants of these RVs have become a lot more dangerous than in the past,” he said. In recent months, Lehr said the RV dwellers have been seen selling and using drugs, breaking into vehicles, confronting health club members, and even losing control of vehicles to the point of vandalizing the health club.
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The lawlessness reached a new peak early Wednesday morning, however. At 1:30 a.m., an RV driver and occupants fleeing the robbery of a Safeway lost control of their vehicle on the steep hill behind the West Seattle Health Club, plummeted down the slope, and crashed through the building.
“They came barreling down that hill, out of control,” Lehr said. “They were trying to make a 90-degree turn, lost control of the vehicle, and plowed right into the back of our building.”
The RV nearly went all the way through the wall and into the pool. Luckily, no one was in the building to be hurt by the crash.
However, the accident ruptured a gas main, which started a fire. That fire caused $300,000 worth of damage for the West Seattle Health Club.
For Lehr, this was the final straw after a year of frustration with public officials.
“What’s it going to take?” Lehr said. “Are we going to wait until somebody is murdered or killed by one of these RVs before we take action? And if so, the blood of that victim is on the mayor’s office’s and city council’s hands.”
Just two days before the accident, the city’s RV Remediation Team had deemed the RV situation on the streets around the West Seattle Health Club “not worthy of any action,” Lehr said.
“I feel like we have no rights as business owners,” Lehr said. “I really feel that the people causing all the problems in the RVs have more protection and rights that we do.”
It’s ironic, he said, since it is his tax dollars that fund the programs aiding the drug addicts and homeless people.
“We’re a local business, we’ve been serving the community for 18 years out here, and this is how we get treated?” he said.
