WET may have had its entertainment permit pulled, but the club will open for some October events and is still making news. The owners of the nightclub have sued the City of San Jose, claiming that the SJPD’s decision to pull the plug and revoke its license violates its constitutional rights. Police claim that the club was a public nuisance: over the course of five months, SJPD reports, its owners were given 49 chances to rectify problems ranging from serving alcohol to minors to a stabbing on the dance floor.

When the recession ends (if it’s not over already) throngs of Generation Y-ers can be expected to flock to San Jose as one of the hippest places in the country. A team of experts from the Wall Street Journal used a variety of parameters to decide which cities will be the up-and-coming “youth magnets” over the next few years. All the biggies made the list, with Seattle and Washington DC tied for the top spot just ahead of San Jose, and so did some of the nation’s smaller cities, such as Portland and Raleigh.

San Jose Earthquakes owner Lew Wolff was the keynote speaker at the Soccer Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SSVCF) annual dinner at the Fairmont Hotel Saturday night. At a highly anticipated event, Wolff showed a 10-minute video presentation that included architectural designs of what the proposed soccer stadium across Coleman Avenue from the Mineta San Jose International Airport will look like, once corporate sponsorships are finally secured. SSVCF is a not a booster club—they are not technically affiliated with the Earthquakes.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the greenest of them all? San Francisco claims it is, but so do Seattle, Portland, and even Detroit, home of the Big Three automakers. Since he came into office, Mayor Chuck Reed has been pitching San Jose is as the nation’s green capital, and he will prove it to anyone who doubts him.

The Toyota Corporation recently announced that the NUMMI Plant in Fremont will be closed next March.  Last week, a number of NUMMI workers and a handful of politicians held a rally outside of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco office to protest the decision to close down the plan

The Caravan Lounge has poured strong drinks on South Almaden Avenue in downtown San Jose for at least 45 years, but ever since current property owners Jan Chargin and Lynn M. Bohnen asked the Redevelopment Agency in 2007 to buy the building, rumors have run rampant about what would finally happen to the classic dive bar. The San Jose City Council was scheduled to vote today on whether the RDA should fork over $1,120,000 for the property, plus an extra $187,000 in “relocation” costs to current Caravan operator, George Rich.

However, the meeting adjourned 15 minutes ago with no mention of the Caravan.

“We are sorry to say the city is forcing us to move. For now we will be open by appointment only.” So reads a small sign taped to the locked front door of Moto Amore in downtown San Jose. The small scooter sales and service shop, located in the old Tenth Street Pharmacy building, officially started its move to Santa Clara last Monday, following months of what owner John Bettencourt says has been an uphill struggle dealing with San Jose’s code enforcement bureaucracy.

“Have you ever heard that the city is not friendly to downtown small business? Well, every word of it is true,” says Bettencourt, 39. “It’s one thing to say you need a permit, but it’s another thing to make it impossible to get one.”

Traffic may be down considerably at Mineta San Jose International Airport, but that hasn’t affected its quality of service. The $1.3 billion renovation and modernization project has earned Mineta the title of Airport of the Year for 2008.

Just over a month ago, San Jose-based Cisco Systems replaced GM on the Dow Jones list of the nation’s biggest companies. Now the networking and communications giant announced that it will be laying off some 700 people at its corporate headquarters in San Jose. The move is part of a larger strategy, announced in November, to reduce spending by $1 billion in fiscal 2009. At the time, the company announced that it “will be targeting reductions in travel and discretionary-related expenses, including offsites, outside services ... and other activities.” The company is now saying that “this limited restructuring is part of our ongoing, targeted realignment of resources.”

Critics are noting that Cisco’s second corporate headquarters in Bangalore, India, is soon to be expanded to 3,000 workers.

Another downtown club went dark last week as SJPD Chief Rob Davis used the city’s urgency ordinance for the first time, suspending the entertainment permit of the SoFA district’s Club Wet for one month. Recent club closures unrelated to the urgency ordinance include Taste, The Vault Ultralounge and Johnny V’s.  The urgency measure gives the chief broad discretion to close businesses viewed as imminent threats to public safety. The ordinance was passed by the city council two years ago following a shooting incident in the parking lot outside Club Ambassador.

Although it is struggling with a four-year $250 million deficit, BART may yet reach San Jose. The California Transportation Commission will be voting today whether to extend the service. To date, some $400 million has already been allocated to the project, which would add 16.1 miles of track to the line. Today’s vote is for another $40 million, the first installment of an expected $240 million. The total cost is expected to hover around $6.1 billion, much of which will come from federal funding. Santa Clara County voters narrowly approved a 1/8-cent sales tax to help pay for the extension in November.

In the midst of the city’s worst budget crisis and a worldwide recession, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed headed a panel yesterday that focused solely on the city’s upside, and new efforts to stimulate local business. “This is a no-bad-news zone,” Reed announced to a crowd of business leaders, investors, building owners and realtors gathered in the San Jose City Hall Rotunda for lunch.

It’s official. San Jose’s Tied House Cafe and Brewery is gone. But fear not, local beer fans. A new brewery may be taking its place down the street.

Is the Tied House Brewing Co. downtown San Jose"s latest restaurant casualty?

The doors are locked and all the brewing equipment is gone. While the brewery’s web site (tiedhouse.com) says they are closed temporarily for remodeling, Rosemary Colon, assistant manager at the still-open Mt. View location, says the brewpub may not reopen at all.

Fisker Automotive, designer and builder of boutique hybrid and electric vehicles, came to enemy territory yesterday to debut its Fisker Karma at Santana Row, and to announce the opening of a Silicon Valley retail outlet. But the news was eclipsed by the announcement today that Fisker’s rival, the Silicon Valley-based Tesla Automotive, inked a big-money deal with Daimler Motors.

What do Inlaid Thermoplastic Asphalt Pavement Marking Systems have in common with bollard sleeves and Wilshire round planters? Easy. They’re all part of the SoFA District Year One Development Plan—a cosmetic redesign of South First Street between San Carlos and Reed Street.