As GM mentioned yesterday, Monday night’s ANC meeting was so long that GM was left with no time to write up the whole meeting in time for yesterday. So here’s what you missed:
Crime
Sgt. Hedgecock came by for his monthly report and bore bad news. Georgetown has been struck recently with a spike in muggings, mostly of the iPhone variety. Some robbers are snatching it right out of people’s hands, but some have taken a more violent approach by simply knocking the victims on the ground. This happened twice two weekends ago.
And then of course there was the brazen bank heist on September 30th, which Hedgecock compared to the move “Heat.”
GM will have more on the crime numbers later this week, but the message sent by MPD is mostly two-fold: they’ve changing up their patrols to pay more attention to Sunday through Thursday–when a lot of these crimes occurred–and they’re encouraging residents to not waive their iPhones around. That’s all well and good, but GM hopes they have opportunity to announce some arrests soon.
Meet the New ANC Commissioners, Mostly the Same as the Old ANC Commissioners
Monday night, the ANC gave over the floor to the two candidates to replace the departing commissioners, Aaron Golds and Bill Skelsey. Jeffrey Jones is running to replace Skelsey and Jake Sticka is running to replace Golds.
The one thing that struck GM about their speeches wasn’t so much what they had to say, but rather that this will be yet another two years of an entirely male commission. What’s particularly odd about that is that just about every other Georgetown civic group is disproportionately run by women. For instance, look at CAG’s board, only three of the eleven members are men. GM doesn’t think the ANC is sexist or anything, but it’s just a little odd, don’t you think?
Yet Another Bikeathon or Marathon or Whatever
A representative of the Special Olympics presented her organization’s plans for a bikeathon for October 23rd. It will require the Whitehurst and parts of Canal to be closed to traffic that morning. All in all, it doesn’t sound like the most disruptive event Georgetown has seen.
But the thing is, Georgetown’s seen a lot of these events this year. And a lot of them don’t show up to the ANC until it’s pretty much too late to change anything. That’s what happened this time. The ANC took out their frustrations on the Special Olympics representative, but really it seems to GM that their frustrations are misdirected. They really ought to vent their frustration at DDOT and NPS or whoever is approving these plans. If these events are truly disruptive (although frankly GM’s not convinced of that) then a better system for how they are planned should be created. There’s nothing gained lecturing the event planners themselves since there will just be some different one next time.
Wisey’s
Wisey’s was back again Monday seeking approval to add restaurant space to the second floor. Apparently the owners addressed all the concerns of the BZA, who rejected their application last month, and it appeared that they worked out a plan with the neighbors. But that was not to be. Despite new plans to soundproof the walls, the owners of Cappicuno’s Pizza and L’Enfant Gallery still aren’t happy with the idea of a second floor restaurant.
Plus there seems to be long held grudges over trash removal and rat problems. So despite the fact that it looked like Wisey’s had an agreement in place, they’re going back to the drawing board.
The one thing that struck GM was this: do people really have an expectation of quiet during business hours for a building right on Wisconsin? Apparently so.
Tudor Place
See here.
Liquor License Issues
Despite the fact that the meeting was already about 3.5 hours old, there were eight ABC matters left to review. Since this write up has approached the blog equivalent of 3.5 hours, GM will switch to bullet form:
- Brush and Blush: GM mentioned this in August. Basically it’s a place where groups come and take an art class as a social event. This license will allow people to bring liquor. Approved.
- Zenobia Lounge: They accidentally didn’t request enough seats for the license to cover their patio area. So they’ll have to amend the application, but since they have a draft voluntary agreement, it will likely be approved with a bit more tweaking.
- Hu’s Wear: Their VA was approved.
- Come to Eat: If it wasn’t going to be enough of a challenge to open a restaurant directly across the street from an elementary school, the owners of the proposed Come to Eat at 3222 O St. don’t even want to own the restaurant. They want to lease it out. So essentially, they’re squatting on a license as a means to make their property more valuable. This was just the sort of situation that expanding the number of available licenses was designed to avoid.
- Malmaison: Despite the fact that the application mentioned DJs and dancing, the presentation only mentioned exotic desserts. Some commissioners questioned how the restaurant would meet the requirement to get 4045% of revenues from food by only selling pastries and such, but the representative assured them that they would be high end desserts and would have several sittings. In fact, they are in talks with the famous Le Cirque. Another thing on their side is that they are the same family behind Cafe Bonaparte and Napoleon (and the future Lapis) so people are willing to give them some slack.
Bonus
Apparently some place called the International House of Pong is coming to 1010 Wisconsin Ave. (which is the address listed for the mysterious “SpinDC” liquor applicant). It will be a Chinese restaurant with ping pong tables. With the Pinball museum and a ping pong restaurant, central Georgetown is slowly turning into your uncle’s basement.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 