Vandals strike Olympia councilman's downtown business

By Jeremy Pawloski | The Olympian • Published July 10, 2008

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A self-proclaimed nihilist group hurled paint-filled lightbulbs at a business owned by Jeff Kingsbury, then posted its opposition to his political views on an anarchist Web site, the Olympia city councilman said today.

Kingbury said he cleaned up the damage to his business, Capital Playhouse, in downtown Olympia Monday morning. The vandals used brown paint, not feces, as they claimed in a post on the Web site Infoshop News. The vandals did attempt to super-glue the locks to the doors of the business, however, Kingsbury said.

The post by a group, calling itself the Nihilist Assault Group, took credit for the vandalism. The post took issue with Kingsbury’s perceived support of the development downtown condominiums and his initial opposition to Camp Quixote, a tent city for the homeless.

“We will make sure you pay the price for meddling in things it is best to leave alone,” part of the post reads. It can be viewed at http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20080707170605657

Kingsbury said that he has not yet taken a position on a proposal to increase building-height limits that would allow Triway Enterprises to build proposed five- and seven-story mixed-use buildings on the waterfront.

Kingsbury said he’s annoyed, but will not let the vandalism influence his political positions on downtown condos or anything else.

“I’m alarmed that there are people that believe that this is acceptable political discourse,” Kingsbury said. “It isn’t.”

He said those responsible for the vandalism are putting their message across the wrong way.

“People who want to have a conversation with you look you in the eye,” Kingsbury said. “This was an act of cowardice.”

For more information, see Page A1 in Thursday's Olympian.