D.C. Slots Canvassers Deployed

The pair pointed to a young woman sitting in a plastic chair on the sidewalk, listening with earphones to a CD player cradled in her hand, as their witness.

"Why are they putting [slots] there in Ward 8?" Jeannelle Wallace asked when approached at Safeway. "It's the poorest area in the city. I think that's terrible."

She signed anyway.

Standing outside the Giant at Brentwood Road and Rhode Island Avenue NE, a man who identified himself as Stormy Burnette said he arrived from San Francisco on Friday night and was staying with about 20 other out-of-town circulators at the Quality Inn on New Hampshire Avenue near Takoma Park.

Some residents object to the outsiders' involvement.

"For me, it's somewhat misleading that I'm walking into my local grocery store and they're asking me to sign a petition involving my community even though: A, the person isn't a volunteer; B, they're not from this community; and C, they're a company profiting from this work," said Christopher Carr, who was shopping with his mother at Giant.

This year's signature-gathering effort is based out of an office in a gallery tucked in an alley off Third Street NE, a few blocks from Union Station. Robinson would not say how many signatures are being sought, only that there would be substantially more than required by law to make up for any signatures that might be thrown out.

In early 2004, former D.C. Council member John Ray and businessman Pedro Alfonso were recruited to be the public face of the initiative. This time, political activist Barry Jerrels, who lives downtown, has been recruited to promote the initiative.