UPDATED: "Average Price Points" Bar Proposed for Former Ghana Cafe Space (1336 14th Street)

UPDATED: A tweet from Jamie Hess makes it clear that the new bar will be named "Crowbar".

The prospective co-owners of a bar to be located at 1336 14th Street NW came before Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle last night (August 6) to brief on their plans. The space, between N Street and Rhode Island Avenue, is the former home of the Ghana Cafe, which closed in early June.

1336 14th Street yesterday

One of the prospective owners is Steve Zarpas, former proprietor of Crow Bar (which was located at K and 20th Streets and closed in 1998). The other is Jamie Hess, one of the operators of Ivy and Coney (which opened at 1537 7th Street in Shaw less than a year ago).

Zarpas and Hess told the ANC they were "lifelong residents" of DC. They wanted to alert the ANC and the community of their intentions before they signed a lease on the space, they said.

"We're professionals, decent honorable people," Zarpas said.

Speaking of the Ghana Cafe, Zarpas said: "Given the history of that restaurant, it's ripe for innuendos."

The Ghana Cafe was the subject of a long and contentious battle involving the ANC and a group of neighbors. The dispute led to the ANC being sued by one of the neighbors. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

Ghana Cafe had a restaurant-category liquor license, which obliges the owner to show he earned a certain percentage of revenue from food. If the new establishment wants a tavern license, they will most likely have to petition for a completely new license, instead of buying the liquor license of the Ghana Cafe.

"I'll be honest," Zarpas said. "It's definitely more of a bar."

The prospective owners told the ANC they wished to get a tavern license, but they intended to serve a full menu of "comfort food" at "average price points".

Zarpas said he was "astounded" at the $20 hamburgers routinely found at restaurants along 14th Street. He wished to open a place with more reasonable prices.


Commissioner Walt Cain (district 02) asked if they proprietors would have entertainment on the premises.

The prospective owners said their initial plan was to show sports on television. After opening, they said, they might consider renovating the basement and offering recorded music there.

James Kane, the neighbor of the former Ghana Cafe who brought the lawsuit, was present at the meeting. There was an opportunity for community comment after the presentation, and Kane asked about characterizations on the Internet that Crow Bar was a "biker bar".

Zarpas said that "biker bar" was "a mischaracterization", but it had been a hang-out for bike couriers and popular with the motorcycle enthusiasts who came to DC every Memorial Day weekend for the Rolling Thunder Rally.

"Is that a group that you are planning to target?" Commissioner Cain asked.

"We have no plans to target that community specifically," Zarpas said.

After the presentation, there was a short scheduled break in the meeting. Kane, Zarpas, and Hess had a seemingly amicable conversation in the hallway outside the meeting room.

The prospective owners did not say what name they planned for the bar. The ANC2F meeting agenda said the prospective business was named "Crowbar".

The briefing was strictly informational. There was no vote of any type taken on the proposed establishment. If the lease on the property is signed, the proprietors will have to return to the ANC for liquor-license related approval, and probably other matters as well.

Ghana Cafe, Catalyst of Logan Circle ANC Lawsuit, Closed

Ghana Cafe yesterday (June 8)

Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street NW), whose liquor-license application was at the center of a recently-filed lawsuit by a local resident against Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle (see SALM blog post of June 5), has apparently closed.

Since Friday (June 6), the restaurant has been dark, complimentary newspaper reviews have been removed from the windows, and the interior furniture has been removed or overturned. There was no additional information on the restaurant's web site.

Neither side in the lawsuit wished to comment on the Ghana Cafe's closing for this story.

Logan Circle ANC sued over FOIA Request

A resident of the 1400 block of Rhode Island Avenue has sued the DC government, alleging that Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle has failed to adequately provide documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Detail from the complaint document

Documents (23-page .pdf) filed on June 2 at the Superior Court of The District of Columbia by James Kane allege ANC2F failed to search their records pertaining to the liquor license of the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street NW). It asks the court to declare DC in violation of FOIA, to force ANC2F to release the documents (mostly emails), and to order reimbursement of legal costs.

In response, ANC2F Chair Matt Raymond has issued a press release calling the lawsuit "frivolous" and "rife with demonstrable falsehoods".

Backstory

The FOIA request stems from a pair of votes (see "Old Business", near the end of this web page) by ANC2F in March 2014 in support of Ghana Cafe's request to terminate a 2009 settlement agreement. The 2009 agreement is a multi-sided one, between Ghana Cafe, ANC2F, and neighbors. At the March 2014 meeting, ANC2F voted to enter into a new agreement with the Ghana Cafe, independent of other parties. The new agreement is both more lenient than the existing agreement and similar to agreements signed by their newer neighboring competitors. However, it will not come into effect until 2016, when the older, stricter agreement will sunset. 

In April 2014, Kane filed a FOIA request, asking for all documents, physical or electronic, that contained the address of the restaurant, the name of the ANC2F liquor-licensing affairs committee, the name of the DC liquor-licensing authority, or the terms "Ghana Cafe", "Settlement Agreement", "resolution", among others, between April 1, 2013, and April 22, 2014.

In his press statement, Raymond says he found "literally thousands" of documents satisfying the criteria. Raymond suggested a narrowing of the criteria due to the many hours it would take to process the documents.

"Neither Kane nor his attorney responded to Raymond’s good-faith offer to comply, instead taking the matter directly to court," Raymond's press statement says.

Kane's court filing quotes a May 14, 2014, letter from Raymond, asking for an extension:

Your request happened to arrive at the same time the expectations and obligations of my day job have been more extreme than at any other time during my tenure here. Multiple projects and events converging within the past couple of weeks necessitated days often lasting 14 to 16 hours.

(ANC Commissioner is a voluntary, unpaid position. Commissioners usually have paying daytime jobs. Raymond's Linked-in profile says he is Senior Director of Communications at International Food Information Council Foundation.)

In a May 29, 2014, letter (also quoted in the court filing), Raymond said "ANC2F is unable to respond to the totality of your request", due to the scope of the request and lack of paid staff. Raymond urges Kane "to resubmit your request with a far greater degree of sufficient particularity".

Lawyer for the plantiff responds

Kane referred a request for comment to his lawyer, Don Padou.

In a phone interview, Padou said the decision to begin legal action now stems from ANC2F's decision to reject the FOIA request in its entirety.

"He could have produced some documents to show that they were operating in good faith," Padou said. "Instead, he just denied the entire FOIA request without producing anything."

Padou was unsympathetic to the claim the FOIA request was excessive.

"If they don't have the resources to comply with the FOIA request, that's not my client's fault," Padou said. "DC government has an ANC office. If the ANCs can't comply with FOIA requests, they should staff their office to make compliance possible."

ANC2F had a regular monthly meeting last night (June 4). ANC Chair Raymond was not present. The lawsuit was not mentioned during the first 90 minutes of the meeting, after which I left.

ANC2F's dealings with Ghana Cafe and its neighbors were the subject of previous SALM blog posts on February 14, 2014, and December 20 and October 10, 2013.

No Entertainment License for Ghana Cafe

D.C.'s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board has rejected a request that would have enabled the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street NW) to feature live entertainment, potentially until 2 am. The decision came at an ABC Board public hearing on January 15 (see .pdf here).

(Luis Gomez Photos - used by permission)

A group of neighbors, all of whom live in nearby properties on the 1400 block of Rhode Island Avenue, protested Ghana Cafe's request to amend its liquor license to allow live entertainment. The neighbors and Ghana Cafe are parties to a settlement agreement. Some of the neighbors' concerns centered around whether Ghana Cafe has previously honored the terms and conditions of the settlement agreement. The neighbors also wished the details about the proposed live entertainment to be more clearly defined, and enforcement of any amended agreement spelled out.

Attempts by a D.C. government mediator to reach an agreement prior to the meeting were unsuccessful.

At the meeting, ABC Board chair Ruthanne Miller said Ghana Cafe's request should be dismissed because an entertainment endorsement would be in violation of the settlement agreement. Tony Opare, the owner of the Ghana Cafe, said the settlement agreement should be voided because he had been unable to set up a sidewalk cafe as the originally envisioned in the settlement agreement. Miller did not accept this argument.

Then, the motion to dismiss the application was made, seconded, and approved by the ABC Board. Left unanswered were the questions regarding the appropriateness of a restaurant being allowed to modify their agreements and being allowed to host live entertainment until 2 am.

Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle had a representative at the meeting and is another party to the settlement agreement. It was signed in 2009, at which time settlement agreements were called "voluntary agreements". A copy of the agreement is available as a .pdf document here, starting at page four.

ANC2F's efforts to mediate between the parties was the subject of the December 20, 2013, SALM blog post. ANC2F voted to protest Cafe Ghana's request for an entertainment endorsement on its liquor license in October 2013.

A settlement agreement is an agreement between a liquor-serving establishment and other interested parties. They often address topics such as hours of operation, noise levels, vermin control, parking, and outside service. See a model settlement agreement here.

Ghana Cafe: ANC2F Meeting Accomplishes Nothing

A committee of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle had a long and acrimonious multi-sided debate about the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street NW) during its December 18 meeting. In the end, not much changed, except everybody was more aggravated. The committee voted to recommend to a continuation of the current ANC2F protest against Ghana Cafe's request for an amendment to its liquor license.

Ghana Cafe moved to 14th Street in 2009

Ghana Cafe seeks an entertainment endorsement on its liquor license. This will allow it to host live music.

The meeting got ugly. In the end, Ghana Cafe owner Tony Opare called members of ANC2F's Alcohol Policy Committee (APC) "racist", after he was denied the opportunity to continue the long and repetitious argument with committee members and protesting neighbors.

Both sides seemed to feel they would lose some important part of the argument if they were not allowed to have the last word, even if that meant repeating what they had said only a few minutes before.

There had been an attempt at mediation by D.C.'s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), but it apparently was going nowhere. The real issue seemed to be that the protesting group of neighbors plainly wished to demonstrate that Opare had not lived up to agreements in the past, which damaged his credibility and made negotiating another agreement a waste of time.

"There is no evidence that he'll live up to his agreement," one neighbor said.

The protesting neighbors all live on the 1400 block of Rhode Island Avenue. Many of them live in an abutting property.

The protesting neighbors provided a long and well-documented list of occasions where the existing settlement agreement had not been honored. For example, the agreement calls for no parking in the area behind the Ghana Cafe. The protesting neighbors presented 13 photographs of 13 different days in June 2013 when Opare parked his personal car in the area.

Opare said that he had gotten a permit from the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) to park in the space. The committee explained that, permit or not, he had signed an agreement saying he would not park in the space. Opera argued that, once he received the DDOT permit, he was allowed to park there.

The debate ranged over a wide variety of issues, including noise, vermin control, trash collection, valet parking, deliveries, the content of Ghana Cafe's website, and the sale of Ghana Cafe Sauce at the P Street Whole Foods.

Opare did not help his own case by making statements which were demonstrably false, like when he claimed that D.C. health inspectors had recently come to his restaurant and "found nothing wrong".

"We passed with flying colors," he said.

It took committee members a few short minutes on their smartphones to find records showing Ghana Cafe had been cited for three critical violations of health code regulations on December 11 and six critical violations on July 31.

ANC2F Commissioner Jim Lamare (district 05) eventually came to the defense of Opare and the Ghana Cafe, saying that the neighbors were seeking to put him out of business. Lamare was the sole vote against continuing the ANC protest against Ghana Cafe's entertainment endorsement request. The vote was three for and one against, with Commissioner John Fanning (district 04) abstaining.

Fanning is the chair of the liquor-licensing affairs committee.

The full ANC2F will probably take up the matter of the Ghana Cafe again when it next meets. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 8, 2014, at 7pm, at the Washington Plaza Hotel (10 Thomas Circle).

The conflict between Ghana Cafe and its neighbors about the entertainment endorsement on its liquor license was the subject of the October 10 SALM blog post.

December Liquor License Roundup - ANC2F

It's nearly the end of liquor license renewal season. Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle had a handful of liquor license renewals, as well as some other liquor license related business, at its last meeting, held on December 4.

Tortilla Coast (1460 P Street NW) has been in business for well over a year. Its current closing hours are 10pm from Sunday to Thursday, and midnight Friday and Saturday. At the meeting, commissioners reported on ANC2F's original agreement with Tortilla Coast. This agreement stipulated, if Tortilla Coast was open for business for a while without any liquor license related problems or conflicts with the neighbors, it would be granted permission for longer hours.

Commissioner Walt Cain (district 02) reported no complaints against Tortilla Coast.

The ANC passed unanimously a resolution which will allow Tortilla Coast to stay open until 1am Monday to Thursday and 2am Friday to Sunday, which is consistent with other liquor-serving business in the neighborhood.

ANC2F also unanimously approved a settlement agreement it had negotiated with Glass House Coffee (1333 14th Street), a "high-end coffee shop with evening cocktails". Commissioners called the agreement "non-controversial". The outdoor space would be open until 1am Sunday to Thursday, and 2am Friday and Saturday. Read the September 20 SALM blog post for more about Glass House Coffee.

A settlement agreement is a document negotiated between a liquor-serving business, the ANC, and possibly other parties. It deals with an establishment's opening hours, trash removal, pest control, valet parking, and other aspects of a business that might impact the community.

The Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street) was back again in front of ANC2F. A group of five is protesting Ghana Cafe's attempt to modify its liquor license (see October 10 SALM blog post). There had recently been a mediation hearing. The ANC voted to direct this matter back to its liquor licensing affairs committee for further consideration. The committee is next scheduled to meet on December 18, 7pm, in the second floor multipurpose room at N Street Village (1135 N Street). See an agenda here.

ANC2F also voted to support the recommendation of its liquor licensing affairs committee to support the liquor license renewal for A n D (1314 9th Street) and Black Whiskey (1410 14th Street).

It decided to take no action in the case of Lotus Lounge (1420 K Street). As reported November 22, an attorney for an abutting office building is protesting the application of Lotus Lounge to renew its license. The attorney seeks a settlement agreement with Lotus Lounge. ANC2F is not part of the protest.

ANC2F Committee Supports Removal of 14th Street Bus Stop

Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle will likely vote at its next meeting to support the elimination of a bus stop on 14th Street NW. The bus stop in question is located on the west (southbound) side of 14th Street between Rhode Island Avenue and N Street. It is directly in front of the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street).

The notice posted on the bus stop

The Community Development Committee (CDC) of ANC2F unanimously passed a motion to recommend sending a letter to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) requesting the removal. Motions passed unanimously by the CDC are often approved with little or no debate at the next meeting of the full ANC.

The vote took place last night (October 23).

The owner of the Ghana Cafe appeared before the committee in support of the
request. He said local homeless people used the bus stop as a "living room", often after begging for money in front of the nearby 7-11 and then buying alcohol from the liquor store across the street.

"It's a place where a lot of nefarious activity takes place," said Commissioner Walt Cain (district 02). Cain is also chair of the CDC.

At the June ANC2F meeting, the owner of the Ghana Cafe complained that homeless people were using the bus stop as a place to have oral sex and also to harass his customers.

Another member of the community testified in favor of the elimination of the stop. He said that the stretch of 14th Street between P Street and Thomas Circle (which includes this bus stop) is the only place in the area with a bus stop every block for three blocks. The bus stop in front of the Ghana Cafe is the middle stop of the three.

"This is a redundant bus stop," he said.

Prior to the meeting, ANC2F posted a notice on the bus stop (see photo) and attempted outreach in the area likely to be effected by the proposed bus stop elimination.

The matter will likely be voted on at the next meeting of the full ANC, which is scheduled to take place on November 6 at 7pm at the Washington Plaza Hotel (10 Thomas Circle).

ANC2F to Protest Ghana Cafe Entertainment Endorsement

Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle voted unanimously on October 2 to protest the application by the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th Street NW) for an entertainment endorsement to its liquor license.

(Luis Gomez Photos, used by permission)

The move came after neighbors from an abutting property on the 1400 block of Rhode Island Avenue told the ANC the Ghana Cafe had not been following the terms of its existing settlement agreement in the areas of vermin control and parking in the rear of the property.

"Don't endorse the new agreement until they comply with the first agreement," a neighbor said.

The neighbor said they had filed a formal complaint about the Ghana Cafe to DC's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABRA).

The proprietor of the Ghana Cafe said he had been complying with the settlement agreement. He said the ANC had no reason to protest the entertainment endorsement and was just protesting for the sake of doing so.

Prior to the neighbor's complaint, it was indicated, ANC2F had had a amicable negotiation, with the Ghana Cafe agreeing to certain limitations on hours of entertainment operation, types of entertainment, and hours of loading and unloading.

What sort of entertainment Ghana Cafe might provide was not discussed.

The ANC authorized its liquor licensing affairs committee to negotiate with the Ghana Cafe about the issues of pest control, parking, and noise from the property's ventilator. If the problems are resolved, the ANC will withdraw its protest.

ANCs often officially protest attempts to renew or modify liquor licenses as a way to maintain leverage in negotiations, but eventually withdraw their protests if an agreement is reached.

The Ghana Cafe is in the middle of the block of 14th Street that will be the prime target of ANC2F's planned rat summit, which will take place on October 17 at 7pm at the Washington Plaza Hotel (10 Thomas Circle).