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Showing posts with label Dupont East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dupont East. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2013

ANC2B Supports New Liquor Licensee in 17th Street Moratorium Area

Duke's Grocery, a new coffee shop/market/pub/café to open at 1513 17th Street NW, got a pair of important approvals from Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2B/Dupont at its regular monthly meeting on August 14.

Duke's Grocery is located within the boundaries of the Dupont East (a.k.a. “17th Street”) Liquor License Moratorium district. The extension of the moratorium was the subject of a long separate debate at the same meeting.

1513 17th Street NW, future site of Duke's Grocery
First, ANC2B approved a stipulated license for the establishment by a vote of 8-0. A stipulated license is a temporary license for a liquor-serving establishment, good for as long as it takes for the DC government to reach a final decision.

The granting of a stipulated license is one of the few decisions an ANC can take which is binding, not advisory, in nature. It does not need approval from another government body.

Second, ANC2B voted to support the application for a permanent liquor license before DC's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board. This marked a departure from frequent ANC practice of automatically protesting all new liquor license applications to maintain leverage with prospective entrepreneurs.

Abigail Nichols, Commissioner for district 05, made a motion to protest the application. She then seemed surprised when other Commissioners asked her to explain why the ANC should protest. Nichols said she had documents to support her case for a protest, but she had not brought them with her to prepare. She asked for an hour postponement to prepare, but no motion was made so the debate continued. Nichols said she was concerned that Duke's would have a sidewalk café. The aspiring proprietors and other commissioners pointed out a sidewalk café would require a separate license, and the ANC could discuss this problem when Duke's came back for ANC endorsement of a sidewalk café license. Then Nichols said she was concerned about the possibility the license might some day change hands. ANC2B Chair Will Stephens (district 08) said protesting a licensee for this reason was not looked on favorably by the DC authorities.

Several members of the community told the ANC they supported Duke's Grocery.

The motion to protest was voted down 1-7. Nichols was the only vote for, and Stephens abstained.

Then Nichols put forward a motion to endorse the liquor license application for Duke's Grocery. ANC2B voted in favor without dissent. Three Commissioners did not vote: Stephanie Maltz (district 03), Kishan Putta (04), and Mike Silverstein (06). Maltz and Putta had stepped outside at the moment of the vote. Silverstein does not participate in debates or votes about liquor licenses due to possible conflicts of interest.

Daniel Kramer and Alex McCoy are the future co-proprietors of Duke's Grocery and presented before the ANC prior to the discussion.

Further reporting on other activity at this meeting will follow.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

ANC2B Endorses Reduced 17th Street Liquor License Moratorium in 4-4 Tie Vote

An obscure quirk in local regulations may prolong the life the 17th Street liquor license moratorium.

The vote by Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2B/Dupont was a 4-4 tie on a resolution to recommend the continuation of a reduced version of the current moratorium. Under normal parliamentary procedure, such a tie would mean that a motion (in this case, a motion to continue a reduced version of the moratorium) would fail. However, the ANC2B city-wide bylaws for ANCs state that, in the case of a tie, the chair of commission will have, in effect, an extra vote to break a tie. In this case, ANC 2B chair Will Stephens (district 08) cast the deciding vote.

The vote on the resolution recommending continuation of the moratorium was:

For: Stephens, Abigail Nichols (05), Kishan Putta (04), and Kevin O'Connor (02).

Against: Leo Dwyer (07), Mike Feldstein (01), Stephanie Maltz (03), and Noah Smith (09).

Not voting was Commissioner Mike Silverstein (06). Silverstein works for is a member of the ABC Board and recuses himself from all votes on liquor licensing matters. In this case, Silverstein was attending an ABC Board meeting and was not at the ANC meeting.

The resolution now goes to DC's Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) Board, which will make the final decision on the moratorium.

The resolution as passed has two significant points that mark the continued slow decline of the power and use of liquor license moratoriums. First, the resolution recommends that the liquor license moratorium be lifted completely for restaurants, legally defined as establishments that make more than half their revenues from food. Second, the moratorium will run for three years, instead of the possible maximum of five. See a draft of the resolution (.pdf) here.

Debate over the moratorium was long and took up most of the meeting. Before the debate on the resolution described above, Abigail Nichols put up a rival resolution requesting a 90-day emergency extension of the moratorium while the ANC looked into the matter further. The motion went down to defeat by a vote of 7-1, with Nichols as the only vote in favor. Similarly, a separate motion by Nichols to make the moratorium that passed five years, instead of three, died when there was no second.

The ANC meeting was held last night (August 14) at the Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW.

Some background on this story is available here.

Further reporting on activity from this meeting will follow.