Council to Consider Limiting Taverns

Adams Morgan Residents Want City to Halt Shift From Restaurants to Bars

When Bryan Weaver was 21, he was drawn to live in Adams Morgan because of its diversity, the mixture of the wealthy and the poor and people of all ethnicities and ages.

"It was how people viewed the Village in the '60s," said Weaver, now 36, referring to New York's eclectic Greenwich Village.

He recalls the sound of salsa music and the aroma of doro wat -- Ethiopian spicy chicken -- along 18th Street and Columbia Road, in the 1990s. But one recent afternoon, he walked on the same streets and complained about the changes he has seen, pointing out a row of sports bars advertising drinks by the shot.

Weaver and other residents who have gone from being in the bars' target demographic to being homeowners with children and retirement plans are now protesting the businesses. They have lobbied the D.C. Council to approve a measure Tuesday that would limit the proliferation of taverns, restaurants that are allowed to serve as much alcohol as they want and as little food as possible.

"We only have two Ethiopian restaurants left," he said. "Now, we've gone completely opposite. Everything has gone Americanized pub."

The owners of several Adams Morgan restaurants, dreading a city plan to enforce a law that requires them to increase the ratio of food sales to drink sales or sell more food by Oct. 1, have been seeking to have their establishments classified as taverns.

The number of taverns in the area has grown from three to 11 since 2004, when the city announced that enforcement would begin this year. Six applications are pending.

The shift has spurred the Advisory Neighborhood Commission and neighborhood groups to push for the moratorium on taverns. The groups say taverns have contributed to violent crimes, including shootings and stabbings, along the commercial streets.

Restaurant and tavern owners say that they are not responsible for the violence and that Adams Morgan remains what it was: a haven for young people.

"When we were 21 to 29, we told people to respect our culture. We liked to eat and drink," said Pat Patrick, president of the Adams Morgan Business and Professional Association and a 35-year resident of the neighborhood.

The council measure, called the Adams Morgan Moratorium Zone, would limit the number of tavern licenses in the area to 10. The city would allow the number of taverns to drop to 10 through attrition, rather than by revoking licenses already issued.

Patrick's association, which represents most of the restaurants, wants the council to reject the moratorium and to rethink the food sales law. Otherwise, he said, many restaurants will close. "If they enforce everything, you are going to have 60 vacancies," Patrick said.

Some restaurant owners say their businesses can survive only as taverns because Adams Morgan does not attract the daytime crowds that could help them sell more food.

Under District law, restaurants serving alcohol must get $2,000 a seat or 45 percent of their annual revenues from food sales.

The Alcohol Beverage Regulation Administration is conducting an audit of restaurants to see whether they comply with the law. Adams Morgan restaurant owners say they suspect that smaller restaurants throughout the city will fail, crippling other neighborhood commercial strips such as the H Street and U Street districts.

So far, 24 of about 700 restaurants in the city have been audited, said Cynthia Woodruff-Simms, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the findings are not yet available.

Bill Duggan, who owns Madam's Organ, one of the Adams Morgan strip's best-known eateries, said it has been checked. "And we failed," he said.

"We have been featured in Southern Living. We've been on the Food Channel. We've done everything," he said. "We still did not meet the 45 percent minimum."

"You don't have that kind of demographic out here," said Duggan, whose decade-old restaurant has "Drunkeoke" on Sundays, karaoke with a two-drink minimum.

Denis James, 57, president of the Kalorama Citizens Association, said that if he had his way, there were would be fewer than the proposed 10 taverns on the strip.

James, a self-employed carpenter, has been in Adams Morgan since 1971 and conceded that he has changed. "A lot of us who moved here were free spirits," he said. "There was this attitude of 'anything goes.' "

But the strip has changed, too, he said. "It's gone from barely any food to no food," he said.

Weaver, now a married father of two, said he is not against the restaurants or the serving of alcohol.

"I spent a majority of my life on a bar stool in these restaurants," he said. "Now I'm being portrayed as a teetotaler." But he said that the restaurants should recognize the intent of the licensing rules. "There is an element of compliance that people have to respect," he said.