Elizabeth and Bill Walters had a five-year plan. The couple wanted to own their own business, and given Elizabeth Walters’ background as a business major, a plan was devised. Four years into that plan, the Walters stumbled onto what would become the Rusty Chain Bar and Grill.
“We came upon the Rusty Chain and its location by accident, probably a year or two before we were really ready,” Elizabeth Walters said.
They jumped in with both feet. A lease was signed in May 2016 for the business at the corner of Columbia and West 31st streets in Vancouver, and the Rusty Chain debuted Aug. 6, 2016.
“There was a great need for the Carter Park neighborhood to have a thriving business because it just kept going through businesses,” she said.
Things went great for the first year.
“We had great reception from everybody,” she said. “At first I was like, ‘This is too good to be true. It can’t be this easy to step into a neighborhood and open.’ ”
As Elizabeth Walters alluded, growing pains quickly set in. The Rusty Chain began to host live music on Friday and Saturday nights. While the neighborhood seemed to enjoy entertainment within walking distance — about 90 percent of their clientele lives in Carter Park — complaints began to roll in.
“There are trials and errors with things you’ve never done before,” Elizabeth Walters said. “We fix as we go.”
Neighbors complained about noises, cigarette butts on the ground, loitering and customers smoking pot. Walters began to pick up butts each morning and hung signs to encourage a quiet atmosphere and started enforcing the rules when it came to customers smoking marijuana.
“Our state is newly excited about marijuana and they feel they can smoke it anywhere and that’s not the case,” she said. “We try to buckle down and ask people to leave.”
A rumor also started that the Rusty Chain was a biker bar.
District 1 Neighborhood Police Officer Tyler Chavers said they kiboshed that rumor pretty quickly. “If it was, the Vancouver police would be all over it.”
To temper any further complaints, the Rusty Chain hosted a community meeting to listen to concerns and find resolutions.
“Change has come to the neighborhood, and it is hard on the neighborhood,” said Carter Park neighborhood Chair Christine Dickensen. “But since that meeting, I have not had a call on (the Rusty Chain).”
Everyone seems content, except a couple of lone neighbors who call the police nearly every weekend about the noise.
“It’s really been a huge undertaking to make everybody happy. Of course we can’t make everybody happy, but we can try,” Elizabeth Walters said. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
The Rusty Chain owns a decibel meter and each time a band plays, someone stands in the alley to monitor noise levels. The music is cut off my 9 p.m., even though the ordinance allows music until 10 p.m. Still, police respond regularly to complaints.
“From a police perspective, it’s a bit of an annoyance,” Chavers said. “We continue to respond to the calls but there’s not a lot going on.”
Chavers said he’s met with the complainants several times and a compromise doesn’t seem to be in sight.
“(The Rusty Chain is) pretty much doing everything humanly possible,” he said.
Calls are so frequent, police don’t always respond anymore. Callers are asked what they are hearing and what the issue is before sending an officer out; a simple noise complaint no longer suffices.
“I’m kind of at my wits’ end,” Elizabeth Walters said. “The advice I get is to continue to do what we’re doing because we’re not doing anything wrong. I try to rid myself of the stress of it.”
The only compromise that’s been offered, she said, is to get rid of the musical entertainment all together.
“So many people enjoy it. It’s a hard thing to give up and I’m not willing to give it up,” she said. “Why should I have to?”
