[Conor Friedersdorf]
Sometimes I read The Dupont Current, a free Washington D.C. newspaper that's rarely talked about, ubiquitous on stoops, and riveting (in a confirms-your-worldview sorta way) if you're the kind of libertarian whose blood boils at the absurd local regulations that hamstring small business owners.
Staff writer Jessica Gould, who formerly inspired my utterly ineffectual tirade on behalf of a local ping pong table, writes this week about the Dupont Circle advisory neighborhood commisioners, who "want to nurture a thriving restaurant row on the stretch of P Street between the circle and 22nd Street."
It's no easy task, they say. High rents and disruptions stemming from a recent streetscape project have made it difficult for small businesses to survive. So, at last Wednesday's meeting, the commissioners voted 7-0 with one abstention to petition the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to modify the West Dupont Circle Moratorium.
My libertarian instincts are rendered powerless by this mess! Should there be a "restaurant row"? It's impossible for these would be economic planners to know. What do local residents think? My guess is that most haven't any opinion -- if asked they'd say something like, "What does the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board do? And what is the West Dupont Circle Moratorium?"
If they read Jessica Gould they'd know:
The moratorium caps the number of liquor licenses in an area that extends 600 feet in all directions from the intersections of 21st and P streets. It has been in place for more than a decade, with renewals in 2000 and 2005. The current moratorium lasts five years... the commission is requesting a midterm amendment to allow two more restaurants the possibility of acquiring beer and wine licenses within the moratorium zone.Does it seem insane to anyone else that a restaurant hoping to open its doors near what is effectively the downtown of a major metropolitan city -- the nation's capitol, in fact -- is unable to serve wine or beer, never mind liquor, if it happens to be located inside a 1,130,400 square foot area, where liquor can be served, mind you, but only by an arbitrarily limited number of establishments?
Does it seem additionally insane that the business of local government these days in Washington D.C. is for one body of citizen representatives to beg another body of bureaucrats to relax idiotic regulations so that new restaurants can operate profitably?
Predictably the commission isn't asking that anyone be allowed to get a liquor license -- they've written their request "narrowly," Ms. Gould tells us.
In other words, they've tried to pick the businesses they feel are most desserving of liquor licenses. I've no reason to think that the body is corrupt, or that a restauranteur in that neighborhood would do well to kiss up to commissioners in any way possible to get preferential treatment... but I'd sure conclude that I'd better do all that just to be safe were I a restaurant owner.
As local newspapers across the country lay off reporters or fold entirely, these are the kinds of stories that aren't going to get covered anymore -- planning commission stories that are boring as hell to report, written by journalists whose prose are too cluttered by city official speak (Gould is better than most), and that are therefore read by few residents, though the issues at play are core to the economic success of neighborhoods.
So keep on the local planning commission beat, Ms. Gould, and I'll do my best to encourage DC's libertarian establishment to pay attention to your scoops. Of course, once you get enough attention you'll move up to a better publication, a less talented journalist will replace you and all my efforts will have been counterproductive.
I have no short term solution for that problem. The long term solution is convincing people that local government matters, and that it's worth paying more for engaging coverage of their municipality.
I'm confused (I mean this with all sincerity) - which is more of an outrage: the fact that there are alcohol licenses at all, or the fact that the current owners of alcohol licensees try to limit their competition using this regulations?
"ubiquitous on stoops and riveting": you need a comma there, be it Oxford, Hahvahd, or Oakland.
There is a civic reason for this, though. Residents of many neighborhoods are wary of becoming "the next Adams Morgan" -- loud partying and drunken college kids on the sidewalks until four in the morning displacing the sort of businesses the residents would like to see. So two neighborhoods -- Dupont Circle & Georgetown -- have these moratoriums at the request of their ANCs.
Revoking the incumbents' liquor licenses would seem to be even *more* unfair.
Do you have a recommended solution to this problem?
-- Aaron, liquor licensee in a non-moratorium area
My own feeling is that residents in a commercial area (and particularly an urban downtown area) shouldn't have a whole lot of say about the kinds of businesses they'd like to see, partly because it isn't actually like very many residents involve themselves in politics at the local level -- the effect is that you get the kinds of businesses a small minority of residents would like to see, or that particularly well-connected businessmen would like to see.
That said, giving restaurants liquor licenses but limiting the post midnight bar business they can do seems like a much more sensible regulation, if you've got to have one, than just refusing a liquor license.
Taxi cab authorities and liquor license boards are among my least favorite institutions in American life.
Liquor laws outside of Nevada and California are all about giveaways to incumbents. Where do we begin? In DC, you can't:
* have more than one license per licensee,
* sell hard liquor on Sundays,
* sell any alcohol between 2200-0900, or
* get a license at all if you're in the wrong area.
And if that's not enough, if DC is like Maryland the total number of licenses is limited. If you're lucky enough to have a license that allows both nude dancing and liquor, you've really hit the jackpot, to the tune of seven figures. Whatever that license ended up selling for is the NPV of you selling alcohol and the government sending men with guns to keep out your competition.
I could see limiting hours of restaurants in some areas if there's a specific reason to (as in Aaron's comment above) -- albeit only if there's a damn good reason why the police don't, er, actually enforce the laws that the "drunken college kids" are already violating. But the majority of restrictions that exist on liquor sales in DC and the rest of the northeastern US exist for only one reason, and that reason is green.
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Hi am william patrick from california, am newer to this community. i really appreciate the informations which you provided in this community. i like to know some more valuable informations about this site...
Alcohol abuse affects millions. This site has a lot of useful information.