[4][6][7] The Wah Mee operated illegally, as contemporary local blue laws required clubs to close before midnight; it was raided by police in 1972.

[4][8] On the night of February 18–19, 1983 it was the site of the Wah Mee massacre, the deadliest mass murder in Washington state history.

[4][11][12] The Woo family, who still owned the building, decided to demolish the fire-damaged portion (which included all of the former Wah Mee space) while retaining most of the exterior walls to preserve its contribution to the Chinatown Historic District.

[15] The renovations after the fire revealed a number of murals from the Club Royale, most of them in a staircase leading down from Seventh Avenue South.

[1] The murals on the staircase depict elegantly dressed men and women, some of them African American, some White, and some (in the words of building co-owner Anita Woo) "racially ambiguous.

"[2] Other murals, also found during demolition and preserved as part of rehabilitation,[17] depict "a peacock, a vase of flowers, and hanging paper lanterns surrounded by bamboo.