Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Even More Chicken
I neglected to count two other places right at 12th & H Streets. So that is makes 6 wing places (7 if you assume that the Olympic will serve wings) within slightly over a block of each other. But hey, Cluck U Chicken is decent business. It's fast food, and perhaps it is more of what we already have, but at least it's not a check cashing place.
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3 comments:
At last night's ANC 6A meeting, we approved sending a letter to DCRA reminding them that fast food is not a matter of right development for a C2A zone.
Dear Dr. Canavan,
ANC 6A is writing regarding a new establishment (“Cluck-U Chicken”) at 1123 H Street NE. We are concerned that DCRA will issue a certificate of occupancy to this establishment without determining whether a special exception for a fast food restaurant is required from the Board of Zoning Adjustment. The special exception process allows the ANC and residents living near the property to provide input on potentially objectionable aspects of fast food restaurants such as noise, odors, lights, hours, traffic safety, and litter.
ANC 6A is particularly sensitive to this issue because of past mistakes by DCRA on H Street NE. On November 2, 2004, BZA determined that the Zoning Administrator erred by issuing a certificate of occupancy for a “deli/restaurant” in the C-2-A zoned premises at 721 H Street, NE currently occupied by Blimpie/Noble Roman Pizza. BZA found the premises are actually a “fast food restaurant” as defined at 11 DCMR 199.1 and require a special exception from BZA per 11 DCMR 733.1.
Come on, people. It's fried chicken, not a toxic waste dump!
Anonymous,
You have to consider the particulars of the proposed location. If you had been/lived behind any one of the numerous chicken/fry places on H St. already, you would know that "toxic waste dump" is not a stretch of the imagination.
It is a constant challenge for the existing chicken/fry establishments to keep their waste and related pest problems under control. In the hot summer, their garbage and tanks of waste grease fester, stink and overflow. In short, it doesn't take much for food waste to really get out of hand, and rats love it.
Consider that the proposed Cluck-U location does NOT have access to an alley behind it (where it could keep a dumpster). As a result, all Cluck-U waste will come out in the open to either 12th street or H St. at some point (for example, Family Dollar, which is in the same building, leaves at least a portion of their trash sitting on the 12th St. side for several days before pickup). There's nothing like a big heap of smelly trash open to the public to turn people off to walking down H St. . . even if they came for the chicken.
In short, the constraints of the particular building where the Cluck-U is proposed make the location inadequate to deal with that kind of food establishment.
And, of course, there's the zoning issue. . . .
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