ANC Round Up: Lots Of New Gin Joints Edition

Last night the ANC met for its September session. It was long and grueling. In fact, for the first time in over a year GM left before the end, and that was after three hours.

Notwithstanding his early exit, GM was witness to a lot of interesting news, and most of it had to do with new bars and restaurants.

But first off, let’s talk bikes:

Capital Bikeshare Stations

Chris Holbin of DDOT came before the ANC to present his agency’s plans on new Capital Bikeshare stations in Georgetown. As previously reported here, there will be four such stations in Georgetown. One of those stations was previously announced to be at the gates of the university. Unfortunately, as Holbin discussed last night, there isn’t enough space on the sidewalk for a station and DDOT hasn’t reached an agreement with the school to place it inside the gates.

So they went looking for a replacement site and settled on the north front of the Car Barn on Prospect St. The commissioners, who to their credit were in favor of the program, nonetheless were opposed to this new location. They argued that the immediate neighbors objected to the noise and activity it would create. Ironically, the one commissioner who actually lives across the street from the proposed location, Aaron Golds, didn’t object. But his lone vote against the resolution objecting to the location wasn’t enough. Said resolution called for DDOT to look for another space closer to the university or on the university’s grounds.

Frankly GM would love a station across the street, but never underestimate Georgetowners’ ability to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The Gin Joints

No, none are going to be actual gin joints, whatever that even means, but eight different new liquor licenses were discussed last night. In the interest of brevity, GM will resort to convenient bullets:

• Paul Bakery – Nothing new here, really. They want to serve beer, wine, and liquor but won’t have a bar. No objections
• Zenobia Lounge – Also nothing really new here. This coffee-shop/hookah bar/book shop is a popular lower Georgetown spot. There are some fears over the noise from the patio, but it should face relatively smooth sailing.
• Hu’s Wear – GM’s talked about this before. The owners of Hu’s Shoes and Hu’s Wear want to open a Mediterranean restaurant. not many details yet, but the owner said it unfortunately wouldn’t be called Hu’s Hungry.
• Lapis – This was a new one to GM. The owners of Cafe Bonaparte want to open a new Afghan restaurant at 1032 Wisconsin Ave. Everyone seemed pretty excited about it and GM doesn’t predict much in the way of objections.
• Midtown Cafe – This one already exists, but is outside the moratorium zone. Few details at this point, given the fact it backs up on residents, it could face some problems.
• Come To Eat – ABRA Director Fred Moosally was at the meeting last night. He spoke briefly about the moratorium and revealed that two licenses that were held in safe keeping were released. One of them will likely go to a restaurant called Come to Eat to be located in the mall. No details on what that would look like.
• Ma Maison – More excitingly, Moosally mentioned that the other license would likely go to a restaurant called Ma Maison, which would move into the old Hibiscus Cafe space on Water Street. GM could have misheard it, but he swears Moosally said that the same family behind Cafe Bonaparte would also run this restaurant.
• Brush and Blush – There is apparently an establishment on Grace street called Brush and Blush that hosts groups to have painting sessions. They want to allow these groups to be BYOB, which requires a license. They are seeking the unusual (at least for Georgetown) DX license, which is to be used by multipurpose facilities.

The Rest

Here’s a quick rundown on the other matters that might call for longer discussion, but frankly, GM had to go to bed:

• Lieutenant Hedgecock of MPD2D stopped by. He spoke briefly about the sexual assault in Burleith, although he didn’t offer many new details. Additionally he mentioned that on July 27th, an officer in Georgetown apprehended three individuals that later were tied to armed robberies, burglaries, and assaults across town. MPD2D is confident this was a big arrest and will have a noticeable effect on reducing area crime.
• Morso’s application for a sidewalk cafe was roundly rejected.
• A left turn from westbound M St. to Wisconsin should start up in early September.
• Safeway was back to discuss its plans for the neighboring properties. They came up with much more Georgetown-consistent plans, but still called for traffic to connect through to the Safeway lot. The ANC is wisely concerned about the traffic effects. GM frankly thinks the smaller parking lot isn’t necessary in the first place:

And that’s about it.