Judge: Search warrant OK to check on smoking at Frankie's

BY KERI BRENNER

OLYMPIAN -- A judge delayed a hearing today on whether tavern owner Frank Schnarrs should be held in contempt of court for violating the state smoking ban until June 9 in order to give Thurston County more time to gather evidence.

Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks, the sixth judge since April 2006 to be assigned in the case, said he saw probable cause to issue a search warrant for Frankie's Sports Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue Southeast.

The warrant, Hicks said, was in order since county health inspectors were turned away by Schnarrs Friday night.

That was following Schnarrs' move Friday afternoon to change his second-floor smoking room into a private, members-only club in an attempt to meet a provision of state law that exempts a "private workplace inside a public place" from the smoking ban.

Health inspectors were trying to gain access to gather evidence on whether the new club arrangement still violates the smoking ban, Hicks said.

The judge said at a hearing Friday that the county's prior evidence was from October and November and not current enough to trigger the civil contempt charges the county is seeking.

Hicks today issued a written continuance order he said he prepared because of televised reports that he said misrepresented his statements from Friday's hearing.

In the written order, the judge gives the county and Schnarrs permission to subpoena witnesses, "such as health officials, employees, patrons, media observers ... as well as subpoena pictures and videotapes that have been publicly played or displayed."

For more on this story, see Wednesday's Olympian.