CORRECTED: Jack Evans on 14th Street Liquor Licenses: "Do You Need a Moratorium?"

CORRECTION: I originally reported (including in the headline) that Evans had said "You need a moratorium on 14th Street". After seeing the comment left by "sherri" below, I listened to the original video more closely. Sherri is correct -- Evans said "Do you need a moratorium on 14th Street?" Apologies to Councilmember Evans for the error.

DC City Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward Two), speaking at a June 4 meeting of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle, recommended suggested consideration of a moratorium on liquor licenses on 14th Street.

After reporting on the outcome of this year's City Council deliberations on the DC budget, Evans noted the 14th Street corridor had improved since he joined the Council in 1991. This was the result of the hard work of many people, Evans said, and criminal activity was no longer a major problem. Then Evans said:

Your challenge is -- how do you limit the growth? And it's something that the ANC over time is going to have to take a look at.

Do you need a moratorium on 14th Street?

You have 71 restaurants there. You know, how many restaurants is too many?

You know, we ran into that when I was chairman of the ANC over in Dupont Circle back in '89 when 17th Street took off. And there were 40 storefronts on 17th Street and when we got 20 liquor licenses, we said, "That's enough", because we were starting to lose the dry cleaner and the shoeshine place and everything. So we put a moratorium and it's still there 24 years later.

And we believe it was successful because it kept the retail mixed and that's something -- on 14th Street -- we'll have to deal with going forward.

At the same meeting, Evans also spoke to ANC2F on the status of granting Zone Two residential parking permits to 1,100 Shaw car owners now resident in Ward Six -- see SALM blog post of June 6.

In 2013, Evans opposed a proposed U Street liquor license moratorium after all the ANCs in the proposed moratorium zone passed resolutions against the it -- see page 6 (bottom) of a 32-page .pdf file here. DC's liquor licensing authorities officially rejected the proposal in October 2013.

See below a YouTube video of the remarks by Evans about a liquor license moratorium. If it will not play, view it on YouTube here. Apologies for the quality of the audio.