It was a warmer day in September, and I had spent the morning playing with my two little girls at the Park at Bothell Landing. I decided to treat them to lunch at McDonald’s nearby, so we strolled over and ordered Happy Meals. As my children gobbled down chicken nuggets and apple slices, I happened to glance out of the window at the Beehive Espresso stand. In reporter Tom Corrigan’s article (Nov. 18), he described the barista he interviewed as wearing a “skimpy bikini top and a pair of short shorts.” I wish the barista had been wearing as much on the day my children and I were at McDonald’s.

The barista was standing in the open doorway, her mostly bare back and completely bare bottom facing the restaurant, the oncoming traffic and my two daughters. She was wearing skimpy lingerie, not dressed like “a pretty girl at the beach,” as manager Grace O’Byrne described herself. I was going to move my girls to a section of the restaurant where they would not see the barista, but we didn’t have many other seating options, so I kept them engaged and their attention directed in the opposite direction. They didn’t see the barista, but before we finished our meal, a woman walked over from the stand to the McDonald’s parking lot. I couldn’t say if she was an employee or a patron, she was wearing plain clothes — clothes that she casually took off while standing next to her car and changed into different clothing. Her clothing wasn’t scandalous, but seeing a woman take off her shirt, and stand in the parking lot in just a bra while choosing another shirt from her car, was not something I expected or wanted to see in the middle of the day, in the middle of Bothell.

I told this story to several people, who insisted I should’ve called the police to report indecent exposure. But is that how we want to use our law-enforcement resources? To remind people to wear clothing? The employee I saw at Beehive evidently had a skewed idea of appropriate public dress (remember, she was standing in an open doorway, practically outside of the stand), making me think these businesses need stricter guidelines. They need to be considered adult-entertainment businesses. Isn’t the basic reason for visiting an espresso stand like this pretty much the same reason one would visit a strip club? Whether the girl is wearing nothing or almost nothing, the brand of entertainment is the same. Before that day in September, I thought these types of espresso stands were probably harmless, and as long as I didn’t frequent them, they wouldn’t affect me or my family. What an ignorant assumption that was.

I never went back to that McDonald’s. I didn’t want to risk exposing my daughters to that again. I’m happy to hear that Beehive will be relocating, but I’m nervous about where it will be — and because of this incident, I won’t frequent any gas station, grocery store or business that shares property with them. I hope that the City Council will take the issue of regulating the bikini barista stands seriously. Bothell is a family town, and we shouldn’t have to worry about indecency spilling out of these small establishments for all to see.

Heather Card, Bothell