Due to violations that stemmed from a felony assault, the D.C. Alcohol and Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) shut down Third Edition for three days in early August.

The bar was closed from August 8 to August 10. According to the Georgetowner, ABRA temporarily closed Third Edition for violating its security plan and voluntary agreement on several occasions. The felony assault, which occurred last February, sparked a six-month investigation of the bar; the violations were discovered during the course of the investigation.

Third Edition’s owners also had to pay a $1,750 fine.

For the sake of those underage among us, let’s hope that these violations don’t affect Thirds’ lax carding policy.

Looks like Georgetown residents will have a few more places to complain about on Saturday nights.

Yesterday afternoon, the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) unanimously voted to alter Georgetown’s decades-old moratorium on liquor licenses.

The moratorium, which has been in place since 1989, only allowed 61 Georgetown businesses to hold liquor licenses at any particular time. With Wednesday’s ruling, the allowable number of liquor licenses will rise to 68.

The ABC Board’s decision came at the heels of last week’s public Alcohol Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) hearing, where residents came out in droves to both defend and oppose the proposed increase.

“The implementation of seven new [licenses] would not adversely affect the public peace, order, and quiet or the moratorium,” ABC Board member Nick Alberti said. “Specifically, testimony revealed that adding seven restaurant licenses would create a healthy balance of ABC establishments in the commercial mix of businesses in Georgetown.”

However, the decision surprised few residents. Last May, the ANC passed a resolution that allowed seven additional liquor licenses to be introduced into the moratorium zone. At the time, ANC Commissioner Bill Starrels claimed that too many businesses either left the moratorium zone or kept their licenses for “safekeeping” after going out of business.

In a separate decision, the ABC Board voted down a motion filed by the Citizens’ Association of Georgetown to place seating limitations along Prospect St. NW near Café Milano. According to Alberti, the Board recieved over 100 letters written by residents who opposed the seat limits.

For as long as Dixie Liquor has been seeking an exemption to the Ward 2 ban on single bottles of alcohol, the Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commission has been trying to stop Dixie owners from getting one. Their logic? Allowing Dixie owners to sell super expensive microbrews and fancy culinary liqueurs will drive vagrancy and student drinking.

But earlier this year, ANC commissioners found themselves unable to stop the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration from giving Dixie an exemption anyway. So the ANC has issued a strongly-worded resolution against ABRA’s decision to issue Dixie Liquor a singles ban exemption without ANC approval. (Strongly-worded!)

The resolution comes after a misunderstanding which caused the ANC to mistakenly believe that ABRA would not rule on Dixie’s application without an ANC resolution approving of the exemption. Wagner’s, a liquor store on Wisconsin Avenue, was also granted an exemption to the singles ban, which the D.C. City Council passed for Ward 2 in 2008, without ANC approval.

Georgetown Metropolitan has the full text of the resolution, which reiterates arguments against the exemption that ANC 2E commissioners have been making for more than a year-and-a-half. Echoing concerns they brought up in both a January 2009 ANC meeting and an emergency meeting this April to discuss Dixie’s exemption application, the resolution accuses Dixie’s single sales of contributing to the presence of homeless people in nearby Francis Scott Key Park.

It also disputes Dixie’s claim that it needs to be able to sell smaller-sized liquor bottles to chefs and expensive microbrews as singles, saying that anyone who cooks often will be willing to buy larger-sized liqueurs and that Safeway has had no trouble selling microbrews in six packs. And it obliquely suggests that allowing the exemption will contribute to drinking among Georgetown University students, the reasoning being that Dixie’s is the largest provider of kegs to Georgetown students.

GM thought—and we agree—that the resolution went too far:

“[T]he resolution’s overly cynical analysis of the merits of Dixie’s application is unnecessarily harsh and is inconsistent with past positions of the ANC. Remember that just last year the ANC and CAG were close to supporting a Georgetown-wide exemption from the single sales ban. That’s all ancient history now, though, since according to this resolution nobody but drunk Georgetown students would ever want to buy a single serving of alcohol and any liquor store that can’t survive without selling them isn’t trying hard enough.”

Hear, hear.

Photo from Flickr user Pedestrian Typography used under a Creative Commons license.