Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s your weekly news round-up:

• Students push back against a cover charge at the Tombs.
• Argentinian cocktail bar now open in old Papparazzi space.
• Another office-to-residential project proposed.

Yesterday I used the saga of Call Your Mother to explore the capabilities of AI to do my job for me. But I didn’t mention that the Call Your Mother saga just took a significant step forward last week. Specifically, the Board of Zoning Adjustment only just finally issued its order approving the zoning relief sought by the store.

As you may or may not recall, this saga began way back in 2019. The store announced it was coming to 35th and O St. and sought the relief it thought it needed to operate at this location. The Board voted in their favor in January 2020, but it took another six months before the actual zoning order effectuating that decision was issued. The store then took several more months to finally open that August.

As explained in my long piece last year, after the store finally opened some neighbors appealed the zoning order to the DC Court of Appeals. The court partially agreed with some of their arguments and it was sent back to the BZA last year. We went through months more of marathon hearings and then last November the BZA voted once again to approve the store’s zoning request.

But it didn’t issue the order effectuating that decision right away. And it continued to not issue the order for months and months. It took about ten months after the BZA’s vote for the board to issue the written order. (Since the initial zoning relief from 2020 was vacated by the court, theoretically the shop could have been forced to close until it was actually granted the relief order, but early on the city decided to allow the store to stay open pending it’s renewed application. This may be a routine accommodation, I really don’t know to be honest.)

There are at least two significant consequences to this order finally being issued. The first is that the decision of the board was to limit the zoning relief to ten years. But it’s not ten years from the date of the BZA’s vote. It’s ten years from the date of the order. So the store got almost a whole extra year of relief.

Secondly, the neighbors objecting to the store have had to wait for the order to be actually issued before they can be permitted to appeal it again. During the hearings, they made it clear that they intended to do so and expressed confidence that they would win again. I don’t know for certain that they will follow through (no case shows up on the docket yet), and I definitely have no idea how the court will decide it. (I’ll merely point out that the store altered its second application to address the reasons that the court gave for its initial decision, so it’s not simply a case of having the same exact issues and facts presented to the court all over again.)

So the saga goes on…

Also, the delay in issuing the order is not unusual, I’m sorry to report. There is a major backlog in the Office of Zoning for the issuance of the written orders these days. A 9 month to one year-delay is pretty typical. While written orders are not necessary for all BZA decisions, they are required for any case involving party opposition. And unlike the Call Your Mother situation, most applicants can’t just go ahead after a favorable BZA vote. They need to wait for the order. This sometimes can color negotiations between applicants and neighbors. If the neighbors agree not to oppose, the project may get completed up to a year earlier. Conversely, applicants are sometimes in situations whereby they can trim back their plans (and perhaps not in the ways asked for by the neighbors) and then the whole project becomes by-right with no zoning relief needed at all.

The Office of Zoning is supposedly trying to bring that time lag down, but clearly they still have their work cut out for them.

Kids using AI to do their homework is a hot topic of debate amongst teachers and parents these days. But nobody is looking into the much bigger question: Can a lazy neighborhood blogger slough off his work to a robot? On three previous occasions, I’ve explored this question and decided: No. Not yet, at least. But this technology is moving fast, and the last time I checked was last year. Maybe it’s up to snuff now?

Let’s see! For instance, here is a lengthy piece I wrote last year on the intersection of history, zoning and popular bagels around the Call Your Mother saga. It’s probably the best thing I wrote last year. But it took me a couple hours to write, time I could have spent doing nothing instead. So could AI do it for me?

Here’s what I came up with after asking ChatGPT to write an article in the style of the Georgetown Metropolitan about the history of zoning, how it impacted 3428 O St., and why it was being debated at the BZA today. This is what it produced (with notes and corrections from me in bold):

“A Little Corner of Rules”: Zoning, History, and the Fight Over 3428 O Street NW

In the mode of the Georgetown Metropolitan

On a narrow triangular lot (It’s not triangular) where O Street meets 35th, a small, candy-colored corner building has become a civics classroom for the neighborhood. To some it is a morning-line generator, to others a source of spilled coffee and stoop litter; to lawyers and planners, it is an object lesson in how zoning — an invisible, centuries-old regulatory architecture — governs the mundane question of whether you can butter a bagel and sell it to your neighbor. That building’s address is 3428 O Street NW, and the shop inside (Call Your Mother) has done what businesses in Georgetown have long done: it has exposed the seams between how the city used to operate on the ground and how modern zoning reads the map. The result is an odd, instructive fight about law, history, and what it means for small business to exist in one of the country’s oldest protected neighborhoods. The Washington Post+4DC Planning+4The Georgetown Metropolitan+4

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The old map and the new code

Georgetown is not simply a neighborhood; it is one of the nation’s earliest cases of America deciding to treat a place as a patrimony. The Old Georgetown Act of 1950 created, in effect, a special historic enclave on the Potomac with federal oversight of exterior changes through the Old Georgetown Board — a legal wall put up to preserve streetscapes and cornices, and, by extension, an entire way of living in close-grained houses and tiny shops. That act sits on top of an even older municipal practice: Washington’s zoning law, first adopted in 1920, which began the long business of mapping what goes where. The two strands — preservation and zoning — entwine in Georgetown in sometimes harmonious, sometimes mischievous ways. DC Planning+1 (Honestly the Old Georgetown Act has nothing to do with this fracas. It is strictly a zoning question.)

Zoning is a deceptively simple bureaucratic instrument: a map with letters and numbers. Those letters (R-1, R-3, MU, etc.) stand for permitted uses and dimensional rules. But overlays, exceptions, grandfathered uses, and a patchwork of ad hoc decisions make the map read like a palimpsest. In Georgetown, the “GT” overlay — a small, neighborhood-specific set of rules — sits over the underlying R zones to impose stricter controls intended to keep commercial spillover from swallowing the rowhouse blocks. In practice that means that whether a tiny corner shop may sell refrigerated cream cheese or toast a bagel depends on a stack of code citations, the history of what preceded it in that building, and the tolerance of immediate neighbors. maps.dcoz.dc.gov+1

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The corner-store category: a trapdoor and a safety valve

A key change in the District’s zoning came with the Zoning Regulations of 2016, which for the first time created an explicit category for “corner stores” in certain residential zones (see Subtitle U §254). The reform was intended to revive the idea of small neighborhood retail while preventing wholesale commercialization of rowhouse blocks. The code says, bluntly: corner stores are allowed in specified rowhouse zones only under certain limits — maximum square footage, ground-floor location (cellars excepted), proximity limits to existing commercial zones, and, crucially, constraints on the kinds of activities permitted. The line in the law that matters most in Georgetown is the GT overlay’s proximity restriction: some corner stores may not be sited within 750 feet of lots zoned MU or NMU — an effort to prevent residential corners from becoming satellites of main thoroughfare commerce. DC Rules+1

But the code also embeds a paradox. “Corner store” as an enumerated use allows small retail, a deli counter, or packaged groceries. Prepared food — that is, food that requires more than reheating or simple assembly (toasting, full sandwich preparation, on-site warming) — is not a matter-of-right activity in many of these residentially zoned corners. To do that, an applicant must seek relief: a special exception (to allow prepared food under controlled conditions) and sometimes an area variance (if the property fails the numeric or proximity tests). Those are discretionary remedies; they require a hearing before the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA), public notice, and, often, sustained neighbor testimony. The result is that a kitchen that would be unremarkable on M Street becomes an object of law as soon as it eclipses the line the code draws between “retail” and “restaurant.” DC Rules

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The building at 3428 O Street NW: a short biography

To understand why this specific building became a legal contested object, it helps to read its biography. The narrow two-story structure — the pink building that now delights Instagram feeds — is a classic Georgetown small commercial parcel: ground floor storefront, upstairs living space. Its use over the decades reads like a microcosm of neighborhood evolution. In the late 20th century the corner hosted an antiques shop and then a florist; a health-food experiment appeared briefly around 1970; most recently a flower store occupied the ground floor until 2019. When Call Your Mother signed a lease in 2019 and sought to open in 2020, it did so in a space that had an evident commercial ancestry — a fact that would matter in BZA filings and neighbor petitions. The Georgetown Metropolitan+1 (This is largely correct, but as you can see, it’s correct because it took the information from my own website. Fair play, I guess…)

The property’s public records show a mixed-use classification and modest square footage — under the 1,200-square-foot ceiling the code sets for corner stores — and its lot lines place it within the R-3/GT envelope that governs many of Georgetown’s residential blocks. But the GT overlay’s proximity rules and the question of whether on-site food preparation would be “objectionable” to adjacent rowhouses made the case anything but routine. The building, in other words, is legally small but politically large. Long & Foster+1

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The fight: neighbors, ANC, and the BZA

When Call Your Mother moved in and began drawing long lines, the predictable civic machinery whirred into motion. Some neighbors testified about morning queues, people eating on stoops, and an increase in litter; others spoke about the delight a lively corner brings to a neighborhood. The local ANC weighed in with mixed recommendations; the Office of Planning’s memos examined the code and the precedents; eventually the matter landed at the BZA, where the operators sought both a special exception (to allow prepared food service) and an area variance (to accommodate the particular geography and prior uses). The Georgetown Metropolitan+1 (This is an entirely jumbled timeline of events. For instance, the first BZA hearings took place in 2019, before the store opened.)

Those hearings are necessarily granular. The BZA has to weigh whether the proposed use “will not be likely to become objectionable to neighboring property” by reason of noise, traffic, deliveries, or other conditions. The board considers mitigation measures — indoor trash storage, a queue management plan, signage asking patrons to leave the neighborhood when finished, capped hours, deliveries at certain times — and it conditions approvals accordingly. In November 2024 the Board issued a decision that, in practical effect, allowed the shop to continue operating after finding that the applicants had made adequate concessions and changes to reduce objectionable impacts. The vote was not unanimous; the decision acknowledged both the amenity and the nuisance. The ruling offers a template: Georgetown’s code can accommodate a small prepared-food operator, but only if the operator accepts operational constraints and the board is persuaded that neighbors’ concerns are addressed. The Washington Post+1

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Maps, maps, maps (and why they matter)

If you want to understand Georgetown zoning, stare at the map until it becomes legible. The Office of Zoning’s interactive viewer is the canonical source: it overlays the zoning parcels, the GT overlay, historic district boundaries, and even older zoning layers if you care to dig. Until you place 3428 O Street into that viewer and see the R-3/GT shading, the 750-foot rule that sits invisibly between residential corners and commercial corridors feels abstract. The map does a simple job: it shows where the law applies and where the exceptions must be sought. If you want to see the parcel, the Official Zoning Map is the place to start; for historic context, the Old Georgetown Act’s map defines the district whose fabric the Old Georgetown Board protects. maps.dcoz.dc.gov+1 (What?)

(If you are following along at home: open maps.dcoz.dc.gov, type “3428 O Street NW” in the address bar, and toggle the zoning layers. You will see the GT overlay and the adjacency to MU/NMU zones on M Street. That adjacency is functionally the line that was litigated.) maps.dcoz.dc.gov

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What the decision means for other would-be bagel shops

The immediate (practical) lesson from the BZA’s ruling is simple: you can open a bagel shop in Georgetown’s residential corners, but you very often will need formal zoning relief and you will very likely have to accept operational constraints. The code’s tidy categories — corner store vs. eating establishment — are volumetric and behavioral. If your operation involves toasting, chopping, frying, or otherwise producing odor or grease on site, you’ll face the prepared-food threshold. If your corner is within the GT overlay’s 750-foot buffer to MU/NMU parcels you may need a variance. If your customers tend to gather outside, you’ll need a persuasive management plan. In short, the law is not designed to stop small commerce; it is designed to make it behave like a neighbor. DC Rules+1

There is another lesson, and it is a political one: zoning is porous to those who can marshal time, money, and public testimony. A well-represented applicant with good counsel and a nimble operations plan can secure relief; a less-resourced owner or a tilting public mood can doom the same proposal. That reality means that what gets to be a community amenity is partly a function of procedural access. This has always been true in zoning, but the Georgetown drama makes the inequity visible: in neighborhoods where property is expensive and neighbors are politically organized, approvals often come with conditions rather than outright prohibition — a small-town compromise enacted by bureaucrats and boards. Greater Greater Washington

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The deeper history: why Georgetown’s rules look the way they do

Two things shaped Georgetown’s regulatory ecosystem. First, its designation as an Old Georgetown district and the establishment of the Old Georgetown Board (FWIW, among the first uses of federal preservation authority) froze an aesthetic and regulatory regime that privileges preservation over change. Second, decades of incremental zoning and ad hoc grandfathering created islands of commercial activity in otherwise residential fabric. Post–World War II patterns — the rise of supermarkets and the decline of corner groceries — removed many small operators, but the zoning map preserved the legal memory of some corners as commercial. The 2016 ZR16 updates attempted to reconcile neighborhood needs with modern retail patterns by carving out explicit rules for corner stores, but those rules were intentionally conservative. The idea was to let neighborhood retail exist without allowing M-Street-style commercialization to seep into the blocks. DC Planning+1

That conservative impulse is visible in the GT overlay’s distance requirement: the neighborhood wanted a safety valve that would keep residential corners from becoming annexes of the commercial spine. It is an eminently Georgetown solution to an eminently Georgetown problem. But policy always meets practice in the person who wants to make a living; hence the BZA’s role as a pragmatic arbitrator. The board is the place where the map’s abstract lines encounter the messy facts of customers, deliveries, and trash pickup schedules. dcoz.dc.gov

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A coda: what the battle over 3428 tells us about neighborhoods

The controversy at 3428 O Street is not, at bottom, about bagels. It is about how a city decides what a neighborhood should be, and who gets to make that decision. It’s about the collision of preservation and commerce, of hard legal lines and softer community norms. The regulatory code provides structure; the community provides texture. When the two are in tension, the outcomes are necessarily compromise: limited hours, indoor trash receptacles, managed queues, conditional approvals.

For small business owners the moral of the story is to plan as if the zoning map were a gatekeeper — because it is. For neighbors, it is to recognize that businesses bring both disruptions and intangible benefits: vibrancy, morning ritual, livelihoods. For the city, the tale suggests that zoning will always be an instrument for balancing competing claims — not a neutral record of what already exists but a set of choices about what should persist.

And for anyone who wants a bagel on O Street: yes, you probably can buy a toasted everything in Georgetown; but the price of that convenience will be the compromises the board and the owner carved out in public record. The pink building at the corner will remain a small civic theater — where law, design, and appetite performatively meet each morning. The Washington Post+1

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How to read the documents and maps mentioned here

• The Old Georgetown Act / historic district background: DC Office of Planning. DC Planning
• The zoning regulation that governs corner stores: Subtitle U §254 (Corner Stores). Read the statutory text for the small-use limits and the GT overlay proximity rule. DC Rules+1
• The D.C. Office of Zoning interactive map: type 3428 O Street NW into the search bar and toggle zoning overlays to see R-3/GT and adjacent MU/NMU parcels. This is the authoritative place to view parcel designations. maps.dcoz.dc.gov
• Longform reporting and case coverage of Call Your Mother and the BZA proceedings: local outlets including The Georgetown Metropolitan, The Washington Post, Eater, and neighborhood press (which document the building’s recent history and the BZA decision). The Georgetown Metropolitan+2The Washington Post+2

Honestly, it’s not terrible, but it’s still mostly words for the sake of words (probably because I asked it to write 3000 words). I don’t think a reader would come away with a genuine understanding of the issues at play, but only a vague understanding. I’ll give it some style points for the regular references to the pink building and bagels generally, but it still does not feel human to me. Or, at least, not written by a human that actually understands the story. But then again, that describes a lot of the humans that have written about the Call Your Mother saga.

So, alas, I can’t (and won’t) start relying on a robot butler to do this. But it is quite startling how much better this is from the initial attempts a few years ago.

Two new establishments on the way according to new OGB filings. The first is Monos, coming to 3124 M St. Monos is a luggage store offering wares similar to Away, another M St. shop. This address has hosted sneaker shops for a while. Before that it was the location of the fondly remembered Bristro Francais for may years.

Speaking of world cuisine, the other addition contained in the OGB filings is Cottage House, coming to 1529 Wisconsin, which most recently hosted City Sliders. The sign states that it will be an Ethiopian restaurant. DC has a long tradition of great Ethiopian restaurants, including Georgetown’s own Das; hopefully this spot will join their ranks.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s your weekly news roundup:

• GU outsourcing its GUTS bus drivers.
• Business ins and outs.
• The tavern at the top of 33rd St. is now finally open.

Do you have lead pipes in your house? You better hope you don’t. But if you do, right now DC Water is ready to help you out. The agency is conducting two efforts that will hopefully help eliminate any remaining lead pipes in Georgetown.

The first effort involves the replacement of the water main. This is a relatively wide pipe that runs under the street. DC Water is replacing it for the streets in red below:

As they dig up the street to replace the water main, they will inspect each house’s service line (i.e. the pipe that connects your house to the water main) to determine whether it’s lead or galvanized iron. If it is, they will replace that line for free.

If you live on these blocks, you need not do anything to enable DC Water to inspect your service line. They will reach out to you to facilitate the replacement if its needed.

But what if you don’t live on these blocks and want to have DC Water check to see if you have lead pipes and to have them replaced for free? That’s where DC Water’s Lead Free DC program comes in.

If you go to this site and fill out the authorization form, DC Water will come to your house and determine whether you need your service line replaced. I’m unclear on the timing, to be honest. I filled out this form for my own house earlier this summer, but it hasn’t occurred yet. That said, I believe they are aiming to do this work in Georgetown over the next year or so. So if you are interested in participating, you should fill out the form now.

Here is a video from DC Water explaining the process:

It’s that time of year again, when people start to wonder what the hell are those giant grain brain-shaped fruit around Georgetown. As in past years, I am ready with the answer, as reprinted below:

This time a year, if you wonder around Montrose or Volta Parks you’re bound to find on the ground weird softball-sized green fruit like the one above. People are often so struck by the sight of the fruit, they pick up one or two of them and bring them home. But what are they, you ask?

Despite their green color, they’re oranges. Osage oranges, to be specific. They are grown by Osage trees, which line the Parrot rope walk. These trees are prevalent in the Great Plains states, where they are often planted along hedgerows. Traditionally, the pliable but strong nature of this tree’s wood made it valuable for fence posts and archery bows.

Technically speaking, the fruit is edible. But you can only eat the seeds, and they’re not easy to extract.

I heard once that people should not feel guilty about taking the fruit home since no animals eat them. I find that they rot after a month or so. But if you don’t want to keep them around, Amazon sells them for $39 for a dozen, maybe you can undersell them (besides being an interesting knick-knack, the fruit is believed to  repel insects and spiders).

Tuesday I shared info about Trees for Georgetown’s annual fund raiser, but unfortunately the links were dead. So here is the info updated with the correct links! Please come out at support our precious street trees!:

Act now to get your tickets to the Sunday, September 14 Trees for Georgetown garden party! Tickets are limited, so act soon – for more information about this party at an historic location, write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com or see https://caseytrees.org/event/trees-for-georgetown-2025-garden-party/  Tickets are donations to TFG via Casey Trees, a 501(c ) (3) charitable organization.  Or donate to Trees for Georgetown by sending a check, noting on the memo line that is for Trees for Georgetown, to Casey Trees,  3030 12th Street NE, Washington DC, 20017.  These donations are tax-deductible. Since 1989, with strong support from the Georgetown community, Trees for Georgetown has planted and cared for over 3,000 trees on the streets of Georgetown. For more information, visit www.treesforgeorgetowndc.org or write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com.

Typically August is a slow month around Georgetown, but this year was quite the exception. Obviously the deployment of the National Guard was, uh, new. But beyond that, on the retail front there were lots of changes around Georgetown since I last manned the shop. Here are just a few of those items:

A new restaurant is coming to the old Dolcezza location at Wisconsin and Q. This space has been a bit cursed since the gelato shop left. A fast causal Indian restaurant, a Mediterranean restaurant and a Acai bowl spot have come and gone. Now another Indian restaurant is looking to open. It will apparently be called Delhi Belly. I’ll leave it to you to Google that name and to wonder whether it might be the worst possible name a restaurant could ever have. I wish them luck, but given the difficulty this space has had, on top of a head-scratchingly bad name, I’m not hopeful.

Solbiato has closed. Or rather, as their sign indicates, it has “transitioned to an online-only store”.

Victoria’s Secret has opened.

Andy’s Pizza has opened in the former Baker’s Daughter space on Wisconsin below M. As a fan of 90 Second Pizza, I hope the new restaurant doesn’t cut too much into their business. But as a fan of pizza, just generally, I’m always happy for more options!

Honestly I’m not sure when this happened, but the Smoothie King closed on M St.

Finally, Yala greek ice cream opened on N St.

Anything else I missed?

Hello and happy end of summer! I can’t remember an August with such perfect weather like this. May it stretch well into the fall!

August Update

Obviously a great deal has happened in the city since my last update in July. With the dramatic and largely unprecedented intervention of federal officials into local DC affairs, many residents are upset, scared, and angry about the short and long-term impacts this will have. I’ll not pretend to know where this is headed, but I’ll note that it is perhaps unsurprising to see that the impact of this effort is not being felt especially much by neighborhoods like Georgetown. The New York Times created this map showing all the arrests across the city since the federal intervention, and very few took place west of Rock Creek Park (the red dots are arrests involving federal agents, and the green are arrests just with MPD):

The only thing I’ll add is that I highly recommend you read the great Dream City book, which chronicles the story of DC in the second half of the 20th century and how counterproductive and, ultimately tragic, federal intervention into DC local affairs inevitably becomes. (If you’ve already read that, then I can also recommend Between Justice and Beauty and Chocolate City to give you an even better historical perspective on the current situation).

Streateries

And having discussed a controversial topic that stirs passion on all sides, I’ll turn to streateries. 😉

A significant change in the administration of the streatery program is about to be rolled out. Up to this point, in Georgetown the streatery program was run by the BID. They were granted a public space permit to construct and maintain all the sidewalk extensions, whether they be for a restaurant, a bus stop, or just to give pedestrians a bit more space. That permit is coming to an end later this year and in its place will be the citywide program.

That program is fundamentally different from the existing one in Georgetown because the primary permit applicants will be the establishments themselves.1 So now each and every establishment will submit an application to the city, and then each and every one of the permits will be vetted.

As part of this, some, but not all, of the sidewalk extensions that don’t serve a restaurant have been (or will be) removed. The ones that remain will generally be ones that have proven to make intersections much safer for pedestrians, as evidenced in crash data.

What none of these changes actually address is the question of aesthetics. In fact, if anything we’re now further from addressing that complaint. With the BID stepping back as the central authority, there will effectively be no one but the city government to complain to about what any one restaurant is doing with its streatery. Whatever you want to say about the responsiveness of the BID to endless complaints over dead plants, mismatched umbrellas, or whatever, it’s highly unlikely that the city will be more responsive.

Moreover, the pilot for a much improved streatery design that I discussed back in February is not likely to come about anytime soon. That is an effort by the BID to establish a different model for streateries that would replace the Jersey barriers and the plastic decking with much better materials. With all the budget uncertainty for the city, it did not get the funding it would need to move forward now. It’s not dead, I’ve been assured, but it’s not likely to happen soon.

I’ve long compared streateries to cilantro. Most people like, or at least don’t mind, cilantro. But for some people it tastes like soap and they hate it. (It’s a genetic thing, apparently.) That’s been my observation about streateries. For some people, streateries taste like soap, so to speak, while for the vast majority of people they taste great (to belabor the analogy). The pilot could have helped bridge this gap by addressing the largest complaint about the streateries. I still hold out hope that we’ll get there, but it will sadly not be anytime soon. So we’ll continue to argue over cilantro.

Trees for Georgetown Event

Trees for Georgetown has long been one of the best and most loved organizations around the neighborhood. The organization is now under the Casey Trees umbrella but they remain very active. They are having a big fundraiser later this month and I encourage you to get a ticket! Here are the details I received from TFG:

Act now to get your tickets to the Sunday, September 14 Trees for Georgetown garden party! Tickets are limited, so act soon – for more information about this party at an historic location, write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com. Tickets are donations to Casey Trees, a 501(c ) (3) charitable organization; you can also give to TFG at https://give.caseytrees.org/campaign/605896/donate. Since 1989, with strong support from the Georgetown community, Trees for Georgetown has planted and cared for over 3,000 trees on the streets of Georgetown. For more information, visit www.treesforgeorgetowndc.org or write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com.

Come out to support a great cause!

Students Back

With the arrival of September, Georgetown students have returned for the year. As I write every year, that may mean you have new neighbors on your block. This sometimes leads to conflict, but I find reaching out directly to the students first is a good approach. Many of these students are living independently for the first time in their lives, so there’s bound to be some growing pains. That said, remember to reach out to SNAP at (202) 687-5138 if there is a problem.

And, as always, if you have an issue you’d like my assistance with, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at 2e02@anc.dc.gov.

1

Technically the BID will still be involved by way of a block permit it will seek, but ultimately each individual streatery will be primarily issued pursuant to the restaurant’s own application.