OPINION | Nothing Will Improve in Little Saigon With the SODA Bill

by Connor Nash

I have lived in my 290-square-foot studio, a half-block away from Little Saigon, for five years. During that time, I’ve watched a relatively healthy neighborhood devolve into a community held hostage by an open-air drug market. After the council pats themselves on the back for being tough on crime with the “Stay Out of Drug Areas” (SODA) bill, my neighborhood will still have a robust drug market for the foreseeable future.

The SODA zones will fail because it relies on an understaffed Seattle Police Department (SPD) to patrol and enforce drug laws in multiple zones, something they are not doing now. Even if SPD can constitutionally enforce the Little Saigon SODA zone, it will only pick up the drug market and push it to just outside the zone, defeating the purpose of the legislation.

Building up to the current roaring drug market on 12th Avenue between Jackson and Weller was a slow burn that started during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The market would grow over two years as Mayor Jenny Durkan, Councilmember Tammy Morales, the City Council, and SPD did nothing for Little Saigon to the point of neglect. In January 2022, city, county, and federal leaders finally came to Little Saigon to assist with a community cleanup organized by “abandoned” citizens. At the event, Morales said she would “find solutions” for the community, but two and a half years later, the neighborhood has not shown much improvement.

In March 2022, Mayor Bruce Harrell delivered on his campaign promises regarding public safety and launched “Operation New Day” after he worked with SPD to disrupt the drug market in Little Saigon. Sweeps were executed, drug dealers were arrested, the County moved a bus stop, and SPD stationed officers in the neighborhood. The area was clear for a few weeks before the drug dealers came back. Today, Little Saigon is lucky sometimes to get an empty police van that does very little to deter crime. 

Harrell returned to the neighborhood in August 2024 at the opening of Hoa Mai Park and said, “We need to be better, and the conditions with which you live and work are not acceptable.” What’s not acceptable is that Harrell’s public safety plans have been unsuccessful in Little Saigon for the majority of his tenure and that there is no clarity on what is still being enforced. Less than a month later, Hoa Mai Park is full of needles and foil, and only dealers and their clients are present. There are no signs of the promised patrolling park rangers.

Now, this new council has passed the SODA bill, with an 8-1 vote (Morales the lone opposer), to disrupt the “permissive environment” of drugs in Little Saigon. The council is signaling to the public that they are doing something virtuous, but it won’t work because the City can’t even enforce existing laws.

At last week’s CID community forum, SPD’s interim Chief Sue Rahr and other public safety officials told the community multiple times that they had few resources to deal with the problems in Little Saigon, let alone the rest of the city. Rahr also passively admitted she didn’t know much about the neighborhood and hadn’t even been there until earlier that day, saying there were “areas that were just awful” and that it was “a little surprising.” I wasn’t surprised by what she saw or the City’s lack of action; I see it and live it alongside the residents of Little Saigon daily.

When Councilmember Robert Kettle responded to a question on why the council is passing the SODA bill he sponsored if the City can’t enforce current laws, he said, “We don't legislate for six months … we do this for the longer term,” telling the audience that nothing will change immediately. Things won’t get better in the long term because it will take years to build the affordable/supportive housing that is needed, bring desperately needed addiction services online, and for SPD to hire officers to arrest the dealers who are destroying Little Saigon.

The City is telling the neighborhood to hold on indefinitely, and things may improve. But it won’t with this council’s empty bills.

I am tired of Seattle officials virtue signaling while doing nothing meaningful to help Little Saigon. From Morales, who failed to directly mention the struggles of Little Saigon during her speech against the SODA bill, to Harrell’s failed shock-and-awe “Operation New Day” campaign that fizzled out, and now, this council wants to implement SODA zones — a policy we have seen fail in the past.

Little Saigon deserves more. It deserves authentic leadership. And action-based solutions like arresting drug dealers and providing adequate support for community members suffering from substance abuse disorders.

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Connor Nash is originally from Maryland and has lived in Seattle for six years. He is an economist with a bachelor's in economics and political science and a master's in public affairs. Connor resides on the edge of the Little Saigon, Atlantic, and Jackson Place neighborhoods.