Community Activism

So I joined in as a homeowner for the first time in my life.

I attended the ANC6A alcohol committee meeting tonight. The committee held a public hearing on possibly establishing a moratorium on bars and nightclubs on H St.

It's way, way too soon to consider such a thing. H street is still more vacant buildings than anything else right now. A two block stretch that is only starting to thrive is just that -- only starting to thrive.

People kept mentioning Adams Morgan. That's a different situation. For one thing, as I pointed out when I said my piece, the problem there is bars exploiting loopholes to get a restaurant liquor license when they're really bars. I think everyone in the H Street corridor will bow down and worship the first real sitdown restaurant we get in these parts.

That's what just about everyone said at the hearing: it's way too soon. Maybe we should look at some other successful corridors in the city (U st, Barracks Row, Chinatown) and see how many bars it took before restaurants and retail showed up.

W00t.