From the Vaults of ABRA’s Safe Keeping

Recently, GM has been on a bit of an extended rant about the state of liquor licensing in Georgetown. One topic he’s touched on a bit, but not address directly is the question of licenses in “safe keeping”.

A license in safe keeping is a license that has been issued to a Georgetown establishment, but which is not currently being used. You’d think in a rational system that once you stop using a license, you’d lose it. But not in Georgetown! There are licenses in safe keeping for restaurants that closed literally decades ago.

Here’s a list of licenses in safe keeping that GM is aware of:

• International House of Ping Pong (Never opened, still squatting on license)
• Lapis (Ditto)
• Hu’s Wear (Ditto)
• M Cafe (Ditto)
• Machu Pichu (closed in the mid 90s)
• Saigon Inn (closed last decade)
• Fino (closed last year)
• Rubgy Cafe (closed last year)
• Grace Bamboo (closed last decade)
• Unnamed restaurant (Eastbanc holds one for some unnamed restaurant)
• Red Fire Grill and Kabob (closed last year)
• River Restaurant (GM has absolutely no clue about this)
• The Williamsburg (GM also has no clue about this one either, but he believes that either this one or the previous one are licenses obtained by Clyde’s around 2001 in anticipation of them building a floating restaurant on the Potomac. It obviously was never built.)

There you have it. At least thirteen licenses that are being squatted on by restaurants that in some cases closed decades ago, or in other cases never opened in the first place. And yet any one of these squatters can legally sell its unused license for tens of thousands of dollars to a party that actually wants to contribute to the Georgetown neighborhood.

In fact, the situation with the International House of Pong is illuminating. This transcript from an ABC hearing last year reveals that the license was originally obtained without the owner even having a lease. When, surprise surprise, an office space is not in turnkey shape to become a restaurant and major investments are necessary, the applicant walked away from the space. He’s since tried to sell the license. The one he obtained simply by being first in line with nothing more than a letter of intent with a landlord.

Again, this is no way to run a liquor licensing program.