Additional seating: A true menace to society

The real fireworks at last night’s meeting were over the proposed moratorium on additional seating for restaurants in the Georgetown Court complex near the intersection of Prospect St. and Wisconsin Ave. The complex houses seven successful restaurants (such as Cafe Milano, Bangkok Bistro and Morton’s) and is one of the few areas in Georgetown not subject to the liquor license moratorium.

When Morton’s recently applied for additional seating, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board approved the request despite neighbors’ protestations, but said that it would “entertain a motion for a moratorium on additional seats,” according to ANC Commissioner Bill Starrels.

Starrels and Karen “Cookie” Cruse, a member of the Citizen’s Association of Georgetown’s Board of Directors, argued at last night’s meeting that the area is already “over-saturated” and that neighbors are tired of spending time fighting every request for more seats.

Robert Elliott, Georgetown Court’s landlord, countered that the alleged complaints about lack of parking and traffic problems are exaggerated and that the ANC and neighbors would still have input into future seating expansions even without a moratorium. Elliott also raised objections to the fact that he was only presented with the nine page text of the proposed moratorium 90 minutes before the ANC meeting started, despite asking for it a week ago and offering to collaborate on it.

ANC Chair Ron Lewis was dismissive of Elliott’s complaints, telling him that he was just “throwing sand in our eyes.”

“I know nothing I say here is going to affect what you do,” Elliott replied. “You could’ve called me. I don’t think you should’ve had this document put together in private. I don’t think that’s right.”

Elliott was at least partially correct—his objections didn’t have much of an impact on the ANC. They voted 4—1 to co-sponsor the moratorium with CAG, with Georgetown University student rep Aaron Golds (COL ‘11) casting the lone vote of opposition.

After the jump: We finally get around to replacing 109-year-old bridges and Tackle Box proves no match for Cookie Cruse.

The other big project on the ANC’s plate is the replacing of three bridges over the C & O Canal. The bridges at Thomas Jefferson Ave., 30th St. and 29th St. are 109 years old and, understandably, not in the best shape.

The D.C. Department of Transportation just started a three year project to replace them. They’ll be doing work on one bridge at a time, starting with the 30th St. bridge.

For the first time in quite a few months a representative from the Metropolitan Police Department showed up to give a public safety report. When asked by ANC Commissioner Ed Solomon how many calls they’d been getting about “quality of life” issues in West Georgetown and Burleith (read: student noise), he replied that since school’s been out, complaints are down by 50 percent or so.

The folks who own Hook recently bought their neighbor, Tackle Box and nearly got away with their request to have a dual Voluntary Agreement (which permits them to serve alcohol) last night. The owner’s request that Tackle Box be allowed to operate under Hook’s VA so as to avoid the hassle of trying to get ahold of a new liquor license was almost going to be approved when Cookie Cruse (the force behind the aforementioned Georgetown Court moratorium) pointed out that the agreement would have to be approved by CAG, too.

And if Cruse’s feelings on the subject are any indication, it doesn’t look like getting CAG’s approval will be any small feat. Cruse decried the move as an attempt to get around the liquor license moratorium by “piggy-backing” and called it a “terrible precedent.” The ANC ended up tabling the request and it will now have to be reviewed by CAG.

Photo by Flickr user Tuffer (belgian edition), used under a Creative Commons license.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.