Split Over Annapolis's Personality

By Amy Argetsinger
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 08, 1995

In the morning, gray-haired matrons in Colonial garb lead schoolchildren on tours along brick-lined streets. At night, suburban singles cruise brass-encrusted bars.

On one block, homes where George Washington could have slept command half-million-dollar prices. On the next, tourist-trap T-shirt shops offer specials on crab magnets.

On the spectrum of 300-year-old communities, Annapolis sits at the midpoint between pristine, frozen-in-time Williamsburg and hip, party-scene Georgetown.

And that's just how many people want it.

As a consequence, it took only a modest proposal to trigger declarations of"war"here this summer. The issue: Should the city let a couple of more bars in the historic downtown stay open until 2 a.m., the closing time already permitted for a dozen watering holes?

To outsiders, it might not sound like a galactic shift. To some downtown residents, however, it represents a dire threat to the fragile balance of quaintness and commerce in Annapolis, one of Maryland's top three tourist destinations.

"As soon as you let two more {bars} squeeze in, you've opened the door,"said Gilbert Renaut, president of a downtown neighborhood association."There will be no more principle for stopping it, and next year there will be two more."

Now celebrating its 300th anniversary as Maryland's capital, Annapolis has endured change uneasily over the last 30 years. Once a rough-around-the-edges port city, it has been transformed by an influx of affluent home buyers eager to preserve the city's small-town Colonial charms, as well as by trendy boutiques and restaurants luring new waves of tourists and day-trippers.

The mingling of historic homes and small businesses along old, narrow streets is part of what makes the waterfront district so appealing, for residents and visitors. But as with so many similar neighborhoods -- Washington's Georgetown, Alexandria's Old Town, Baltimore's Fells Point -- the close contact creates friction. Residents complain about noise and trash, especially from bar crowds, while restaurant and tavern owners bridle at the regulations urged by homeowners.

Fear of creeping Georgetownism led downtown residents to try to clamp down on Annapolis's burgeoning nightlife scene. Last year, the City Council approved regulations agreed upon by an organization of residents and business leaders after three years of testy negotiations.

The agreement: No more bars would be granted licenses to stay open until 2 a.m. They would have to close by midnight. Bars that already closed at 2 a.m., however, would keep that privilege.

Now, some council members want to relax closing-time restrictions. Two restaurants that close at midnight have made several attempts to snag 2 a.m. liquor licenses, and some politicians say it would only be fair. Bills proposing to extend more licenses will go up for a vote tomorrow night.

Council members Carl Snowden and Ellen Moyer insist that last year's compromise set up what is at least an unfair system for other restaurants and possibly an illegal monopoly.

"There are lots of ways you can control your downtown crowd without being subject to a restraint-of-trade issue,"Moyer said.

But although Snowden and Moyer insist that they, like most residents, don't want to see the downtown Annapolis bar scene get bigger or louder, their efforts generated a firestorm. Residents and business owners packed the council chambers for six-hour hearings, and vehement, anonymous fliers started appearing in downtown mailboxes.

It is not the first, and probably not the last, time that downtown business plans have roiled Annapolis.

Last year's opening of a small frozen-yogurt shop near the City Dock created a sensation. Some residents fought for strict regulations of the business, complaining that it would bring a chintzy"boardwalk"atmosphere to downtown.

A similar stir was kicked up this summer over sidewalk cafes, now operating without controversy outside several downtown restaurants.

A lack of consensus on how the historic district should look means that"every issue becomes a major battle,"said Bob Friday, president of the Annapolis Business Coalition, which sides with the residents' association against issuing more permits allowing 2 a.m. closings.

Snowden and others accuse historic-district residents of stifling business development in favor of a gentrified quaintness. But residents claim their efforts would save, not stifle, tourism, one of the economic mainstays.

Downtown resident Paul Elder drew a distinction between late-night bar patrons and"quality"visitors, those who"leave more greenbacks than broken bottles."

For many Annapolitans, quality visitors were exemplified by a national conference sponsored by Forbes magazine, which brought a hundred corporate executives to town in July. Bryan Miller, another downtown resident, said that the company was drawn by the city's history and Chesapeake Bay views."Do you think Forbes would come here if they knew this was a nightclub and bar scene?"Miller asked.

One business owner seeking a 2 a.m. closing said the worries of Annapolis slipping toward the Georgetown scene are overstated."If all the restaurants had 2 a.m. closings, it might attract a few more people, but not a lot,"said Harvey Blonder, of Buddy's Crabs and Ribs."It would just shift people from one place to the next."

Still, fear of disturbing the delicate balance means downtowners will want to stick to what Renaut, the neighborhood association president, calls jokingly the"completely irrational midpoint decision"of the 2 a.m. compromise.

A 20-year resident of Annapolis, Renaut said he can live with the current mix of old-time charm and modern-day business and the parking hassles, noise and crowds that go with it."I just don't want it to get any worse."

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