By STEPHANIE KLEIN
MyNorthwest.com

The owner of the Five Point Cafe in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood says he's pleased with Mayor McGinn's nightlife initiative.

"The whole attitude of the initiative I like a lot, which is 'we want nightlife to be safe, but we also want to encourage it.' It's a big shift from the Nickels era, which was 'we just want to discourage nightlife and that's how we're going to keep nightlife safe,'" Dave Meinert told KIRO Radio's Ross and Burbank Show.

The mayor's new plan would extend service hours past the current 2 a.m. closing time or stagger the times.

"Something needs to be done about that because a lot of police resources are taken up. People are pushed out onto the streets at 2 a.m.," Meinert said.

Mayor McGinn said the proposed changes may take up to a year before clearing bureaucratic obstacles.

"The attitude right now is that we want to work with the liquor board...They haven't said no to this, but they're a little scared of the idea and they need to see some more evidence and some more statistics on how it would work. We're trying to show that to them," Meinert said.

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