Comments on Dupont ANC's cafe guidelines show collaborative path - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by SG

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:42:24 EDT

As for the matter of this post, the guidelines for any strip zoned commercial should be that the restaurant bar gets full hours for any request. If you can't maintain nightlife on our scarce commercial strips, then where can you?! Living next to a commercial strip is a tradeoff- convenience of living next to nightlife and retail, but with the understanding that it's a city and it might get loud.

Comment by SG

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:39:51 EDT

Can we please just loosen the liquor laws and licensing in this city? Enough with the uptight blue laws!! Why are liquor stores still not allowed to open on Sunday? Are we in Alabama?

Comment by KevIn O'Connor

Tue, 10 May 2011 18:05:41 EDT

Thanks for doing this write up, David. We owe a lot to our Alcohol Policy Committee, which works with residents and businesses to help establish these standards. Hopefully, this will help other neighborhoods as well. The goal is consistency so that we can applying things fairly throughout the ANC.

This is the same model I used to develop our Moratorium proposal that is currently under consideration with the ABC Board.

In the future, we are looking to address issues with Voluntary Agreements. The goal is ultimately to develop more consistent language and to address business and residential concerns in a responsible, positive manner. Again, we hope our work can help some of the other neighborhoods in DC that don't deal with these issues as regularly (ANC2B has the most ABRA licenses in the District).

Stay tuned. Lots of interesting stuff coming up!

Comment by John in MVS

Tue, 10 May 2011 13:17:31 EDT

From a business perspective, I don't understand why the city can't have citywide regulations governing these types of applications that are similar to zoning regulations. Basically, if you want to open new restaurant with a liquor license you go to the DCRA or the liquor board, find your location, and the city would be mapped out into zones with different regulations on operating hours, sidewalk seating, music, etc. That way it is more predictable for businesses as well as people living in the community. This would be a way to generate excitement in neighborhoods, while ensuring that everyone is one the same page and knows what they are getting into. The ANCs could be involved in setting this up and helping determine the "liquor/entertainment" zones for their neighborhoods so they are still providing input. It would also make the establishment of a new business more efficient all around.

Comment by w

Tue, 10 May 2011 12:16:34 EDT

the Capitol Hill are is extremely confusing because there are both the ANC's and the CHRS. They both seem to carry a lot of weight. CHRS- of course is an unelected body buts acts as though they are the ONLY real voice for the area. Having one body to go to for approvals would be great. It would remove NIMBYism out of the equation and be far friendlier for small businesses. DC needs to go a long way towards enhancing it's attitutdes towards small businesses- we are extremely hostile to them here and this needs to stop. Taking power away from NIMBY groups is a step in the right direction .

Comment by Jasper

Tue, 10 May 2011 11:03:39 EDT

But you still need to get my three letter-soup organizations to get a liquor license. That is simply inefficient. It is insulting to common sense that in a small jurisdiction like DC, a single district-wide organization could not weigh all interests in one swoop.