A look at what's going on in Trinidad, on H Street, and in the larger area north of Capitol Hill.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The Hill: Two Drink Minimum on H
Hillscape looks at H Street's recently enacted singles ban.
24 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Take race out of it. It's poor vs not-poor. If you had any sense you'd by one big bottle of vodka or a six-pack of malt liquour and keep it in your pantry.
The poor don't have the money to buy more than one bottle of booze or they would, it's cheaper/ounce.
Why pay 1.50 for a single when you can pay 4.55 for a six? I wouldn't unless I didn't have 4.55 at the end of the day.
"Have you ever looked and seen how many people are drunk and urinating coming out of the clubs?"
Most people seem to use the bathrooms in the club as far as I've seen. Why would somebody urinate in the street when there's a nice clean restroom to use?
Haves vs have nots? That's ridiculous. Plenty of people who are poor do not appreciate drunkards peeing on their back fences and littering and loitering.
I love how Beatty says "This is not about class..." and then is later cited in the article as saying that "..stores that rely on sales of singles will just have to go upscale and offer products comparable to what’s available at, say, Harris Teeter or Trader Joe’s..."
Kerry, reread the article. That second thing isn't a quote, so it's not exactly clear what Commissioner Beatty said. One other note I'd like to add is that I attended a hearing on this ban , and there was a rep from Family Liquor (I don't recall his name), and at the meeting he suggested that it would be just as easy for people to sneak drink out of these bars by slipping them into their pockets. I think he didn't really get the concept. Unless you are talking about Dan's Cafe, most bars aren't serving you pocket/airplane sized bottles of liquor.
A couple of other points that but me about this article:
1. When the author writes about those "Single-selling businesses up and down the strip" he is only talking about 3-4 places max (if he is actually talking to businesses that fall within the ban boundaries) because that's exactly how many places will be impacted. Every other licquor license carrying store within the boundaries had already agreed under various voluntary agreements not to sell singles. Elesewhere in the article, the author writes that "Like other stores, Family Liquor does a significant amount of business in singles sales." Yeah, like other liquor stores, or, you know, like at least two others (but he's just suggested that it's the norm for liquor stores around here, and maybe generally). A nice example of a logical fallicy there and definitely don't look behind the curtain.
I'm also curious what time Mr. Hodges is leaving his shop and seeing people pee on the street. If the store closes at 10pm (the latest it can stay open as a liquor store, but many around here actually close at 9pm), and he locks up and leaves at 11pm that is still relatively early to catch the worst of the bar scene (which mostly seems pretty tame on H Street to me). I've never seen anyone puke, or pee on the street after coming out of one of these bars. Sorry, but I'm not at all convinced that this claim of routinue street peeing by H Street bar patrons is accurate.
Is Arhur Delaney new to DC and to writing generally? His pieces often seem naive, he doesn't seem to realize he is reporting on issues with decades of history, and he seems to craft articles that simplistically suggest that black peoplein DC are all poor, all support BS like the sale of singles, etc.
I understand he does actually live on the Hill? The Hill may want to consider someone with a more nuanced understanding of urban settings, as his articles seem to fall along stereotypical 'us vs them' scenarios instead of being pieces that actually explore an issue.
calling this racial or haves vs. have nots is ridiculous. This ban is aimed at people who buy booze and consume it on the street (notice all the little vodka bottles littering H street). This store owner calling this an effort to divide the community is no community advocate - his comments are completely self serving. It's like the racial/gentrification bogeyman can be blamed for everything...
No, I have to agree that bar patrons generally tend to prefer bathrooms to streets, and since many of the H Street bar patrons aren't walking up and down H to get to and from the bars, there's not much of an issue with those on their way home.
I did realize that it wasn't a direct quote, and tried to think of a good way to phrase my post to indicate that, and settled on 'cited' instead of 'quoted.' Which apparently didn't do the trick. Perhaps the juxtaposition was a bit of intentional muckraking.
kerry: I live around the corner from Family Liquor and I have to routinely hose out and bleach our alley, shovel up piles of human crap and rake up bagged single Steel Reserve cans and glass half-pint bottles all along the street. I also enjoy my regular conversations with drunks urinating on my house in which I have to try to convince them that it's just not a nice thing to do.
Slowing down the rate of public intoxication, urination and defacation is not a "class" thing. It's just a do-the-right-thing thing.
Oh, and I am not holyer than though...I am a regular Family Liquor patron.
Since young Arthur lumped the noise issue into his story, I must reiterate:
The residents--of all shapes, sizes and colors--who live in and around the 700 block of 8th Street NE support the rights to free speech in the public space.
We simply do not want preachers in our bedrooms.
People who continue to infer the current D.C. noise issue is about anything other than noise have yet to point out a decibel meter's race, gender or content buttons.
Maybe the problem I have with this article is the author tries to cram about twenty stories all together into one tiny article, then makes a big pronouncement that they are all based on race and class issues. Hence, race and class become the issue artificially.
It would have been much better if they'd just zeroed in on singles, and perhaps actually interviewed merchants and neighbors to see how they feel about singles sales.
As written, the article is sortof like every junior high school article I ever read that tried to solve the racism or world hunger or global warming or cheerleading tryout controversy problem in six paragraphs or less, with a few platitudes, stereotypes, and surface-level observations in lieu of actually addressing a particular salient point.
If you read the two Hillscape articles this author wrote on the Old Navy Hospital you'll see a striking difference. The first he wrote on Sept 6 was, shall we say, inflammatory at best, pushing all the race and class buttons without much actual fact, letting selective and unrebutted inflammatory quotes set a rather unfortunate tone. The second, published two weeks later, looks like something his editors made him write after reading how bad his first was. Turns out pretty much all of what was written in his first article was refuted by actual facts in his second.
Unfortunately, his oversimplification and muckraking when not necessary isn't just unfortunate - it's actually harmful and unnecessarily inflammatory.
Seriously? How else do people get from dinner at the argonaut to a show at palace of wonders? I feel like walking in between the bars is a pretty normal thing, but i read a lot of quotes like that on this blog. I really don't think H between 11th and 15th is really that bad on a busy weekend night. Do others disagree?
I wasn't trying to say that people don't walk between bars on H - certainly they do between 12th and 15th. I'm just saying that the last time I found myself in RnR Hotel on a Saturday night, I was shocked by how bridge and tunnel a lot of the crowd seemed to be, and I don't think they're getting to RnR by foot or on the X2.
So places where you're seeing the most problems, like around 7th and 8th, aren't - I don't think - seeing a lot of traffic from patrons on bars between 12th and 15th. Point being, hipster kids from Arlington aren't pissing on peoples houses on the walk back to the metro, contrary to the apparent assertions of Hodges.
I'm so glad everyone is commenting on this article. I work on the Hill, and I cringed when I read it.
The one thing I need to ask: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to say the same things to the staff at the Hill.
First and foremost, you should direct your comments to Betsy Rothstein, who is the Capitol Living editor. Her email address is betsyr@thehill.com.
Delaney is a contributing writer, which usually means he's not full-time staff (or at least not a full-time writer) and, as such, he doesn't have an email address listed on the site.
This article makes a shallow attempt to appear even-handed about the issue but then presents the reader with a false choice: implying that the city council/you are either anti-poor or racist if city council/you support the ban. (See: "Has Hodge got a point? Or is the city just race crazed?)
Normally, I try to be as civil as possible when commenting on blogs...but what a stupid article. I'm wondering if the writer will think I'm racist if I put flowers on my front porch or sweep up the empty Steel Reserve cans on my block. Will that be seen as a slap in the face of minorities or the poor? H St. neighborhood supported the ban b/c we are tired of seeing our neighborhood look like crap with beer cans all over the place and are tired of people taking leaks on our houses. Period.
“Have you ever looked and seen how many people are drunk and urinating coming out of the clubs?” asked Hodge.
--Has Mr. Hodge ever taken a good, close look at the full-time drinking and peeing party at the corner of 7th and H that occurs regularly throughout the day on both weekdays and weekends? His establishment is the sole supporter of it. Same regular cast of neighborhood characters set up shop in the AM, sometimes a few new ones drop by to either drink a few freshly purchased bagged beers and then take a leak on my house. Or perhaps just stop by and take a leak or a dump in the alley. not to mention the amount of street trash it produces. It's become so common, the cops don't even deal with it. I've seen them waiting at the redlight at 7th and H and have a conversation with the party and then drive off. Same with the beat cops on foot. A singles ban wouldn't even be necessary if these folks would exercise some respect and use a public restroom (or one of the many johnny houses along H) and learn to not litter all over the place. Mr. Hodge could do a better job cleaning up the mess that he helps to contribute to, yet I've never seen him pick up the street or water down/clean the alley once.
"Point being, hipster kids from Arlington aren't pissing on peoples houses on the walk back to the metro, contrary to the apparent assertions of Hodges."
Definitely agree you with you there, Kerry. And sorry, wasn't trying to be contradictory, just wanted to be sure my late night jaunts between the argo and the pug aren't risky. Cheers!
Inked, good points. I could have said "a handful of other liquor stores" instead of the way I did it. And "Like THE other stores THAT SELL SINGLES, Family Liquor does a significant amount of business..."
As for Hodge's point about people urinating coming out of the clubs, I noted that that is not something lots of people complain about. He says he sees it after leaving his store, an hour or more after closing time.
My paraphrase of Beatty that Kerry noticed is not unfair. Look at her direct quote at the end.
The purpose of the article was to point out a little trend on H Street NE -- there's always somebody who cries race and class because of a policy being pushed by the local government there. I guess the Frozen Tropics readers agree more with the idea that the city is RACE CRAZED, that Hodge does NOT have a point.
Hillman, I'm a D.C. lifer. But that doesn't mean I'm not young and naive! Help me grow up with letters to adelaney@thehill.com
Arthur, thanks for responding. You absolutely did point out that the public urination thing wasn't a common complaint. I didn't mean to suggest that you mischaracterized her statement, only that it wasn't clear from the article exactly what she did say.
In my experience the singles ban remains fairly controversial and the sides aren't really clearly drawn by either race, or class.
I think the claim that a singles ban must be motivated by antipathy to blacks is itself an incredibly bigoted thing to say. The implicit suggestion in such a comment is that it's somehow part of black culture to drink in public and urinate on other people's porches. News flash: it isn't.
I appreciate you coming on this forum to respond. That shows a lot of guts.
I went back and read my posts here, and I must admit I was a bit harsh on you, given the fact that you have a very limited space in Hillscape. I apologize for that severity.
As you can probably see from the posts in this forum there's a pretty widespread feeling that this article wasn't well received.
Another handicap - so many other articles have been written locally in which the basic mantra seems to be 'poor black people just can't help themselves - they love to drink in public, etc.' and, by extension, 'all the white newcomers hate the poor blacks and are out to destroy black culture by banning singles, insisting on police presence, etc'.......
So when we see things like your Hillscape article it's easy for us to see that as yet another example.
I really do think that if you had the space to do a more indepth article perhaps the reaction would have been much more positive.
Please don't let this discourage you or The Hill from writing about controversial local topics. The last thing we want is a boring Hillscape, where all you cover are local bake sales and use only Chamber-of-Commerce type rah-rah pronouncements about our neighborhoods.
But please also remember that things are not always as they seem on the Hill. There's a whole lot of overblown rhetoric out there, and there's a lot of demagoguery when it comes to race and economic issues in DC. Unfortunately, that sort of rhetoric makes a more interesting story, so that's what is often reported.
The more boring but ultimately more substantial story is that the considerable majority of us want the same things -safer and cleaner streets, more neighborhood stability, and a brighter future, while maintaining a place for anyone that wants to be a positive, contributing member of society.
24 comments:
Take race out of it. It's poor vs not-poor. If you had any sense you'd by one big bottle of vodka or a six-pack of malt liquour and keep it in your pantry.
The poor don't have the money to buy more than one bottle of booze or they would, it's cheaper/ounce.
Why pay 1.50 for a single when you can pay 4.55 for a six? I wouldn't unless I didn't have 4.55 at the end of the day.
J
"Have you ever looked and seen how many people are drunk and urinating coming out of the clubs?"
Most people seem to use the bathrooms in the club as far as I've seen. Why would somebody urinate in the street when there's a nice clean restroom to use?
Haves vs have nots? That's ridiculous. Plenty of people who are poor do not appreciate drunkards peeing on their back fences and littering and loitering.
There was only a fight over the Cluck U, and not over any other cheap food establishments, like the Jamaican place at 5th and H.
I love how Beatty says "This is not about class..." and then is later cited in the article as saying that "..stores that rely on sales of singles will just have to go upscale and offer products comparable to what’s available at, say, Harris Teeter or Trader Joe’s..."
Yeah, no class connotation there.
Kerry, reread the article. That second thing isn't a quote, so it's not exactly clear what Commissioner Beatty said.
One other note I'd like to add is that I attended a hearing on this ban , and there was a rep from Family Liquor (I don't recall his name), and at the meeting he suggested that it would be just as easy for people to sneak drink out of these bars by slipping them into their pockets. I think he didn't really get the concept. Unless you are talking about Dan's Cafe, most bars aren't serving you pocket/airplane sized bottles of liquor.
A couple of other points that but me about this article:
1. When the author writes about those "Single-selling businesses up and down the strip" he is only talking about 3-4 places max (if he is actually talking to businesses that fall within the ban boundaries) because that's exactly how many places will be impacted. Every other licquor license carrying store within the boundaries had already agreed under various voluntary agreements not to sell singles. Elesewhere in the article, the author writes that "Like other stores, Family Liquor does a significant amount of business in singles sales." Yeah, like other liquor stores, or, you know, like at least two others (but he's just suggested that it's the norm for liquor stores around here, and maybe generally). A nice example of a logical fallicy there and definitely don't look behind the curtain.
I'm also curious what time Mr. Hodges is leaving his shop and seeing people pee on the street. If the store closes at 10pm (the latest it can stay open as a liquor store, but many around here actually close at 9pm), and he locks up and leaves at 11pm that is still relatively early to catch the worst of the bar scene (which mostly seems pretty tame on H Street to me). I've never seen anyone puke, or pee on the street after coming out of one of these bars. Sorry, but I'm not at all convinced that this claim of routinue street peeing by H Street bar patrons is accurate.
Is Arhur Delaney new to DC and to writing generally? His pieces often seem naive, he doesn't seem to realize he is reporting on issues with decades of history, and he seems to craft articles that simplistically suggest that black peoplein DC are all poor, all support BS like the sale of singles, etc.
I understand he does actually live on the Hill? The Hill
may want to consider someone with a more nuanced understanding of urban settings, as his articles seem to fall along stereotypical 'us vs them' scenarios instead of being pieces that actually explore an issue.
calling this racial or haves vs. have nots is ridiculous. This ban is aimed at people who buy booze and consume it on the street (notice all the little vodka bottles littering H street). This store owner calling this an effort to divide the community is no community advocate - his comments are completely self serving. It's like the racial/gentrification bogeyman can be blamed for everything...
No, I have to agree that bar patrons generally tend to prefer bathrooms to streets, and since many of the H Street bar patrons aren't walking up and down H to get to and from the bars, there's not much of an issue with those on their way home.
I did realize that it wasn't a direct quote, and tried to think of a good way to phrase my post to indicate that, and settled on 'cited' instead of 'quoted.' Which apparently didn't do the trick. Perhaps the juxtaposition was a bit of intentional muckraking.
kerry:
I live around the corner from Family Liquor and I have to routinely hose out and bleach our alley, shovel up piles of human crap and rake up bagged single Steel Reserve cans and glass half-pint bottles all along the street. I also enjoy my regular conversations with drunks urinating on my house in which I have to try to convince them that it's just not a nice thing to do.
Slowing down the rate of public intoxication, urination and defacation is not a "class" thing. It's just a do-the-right-thing thing.
Oh, and I am not holyer than though...I am a regular Family Liquor patron.
Since young Arthur lumped the noise issue into his story, I must reiterate:
The residents--of all shapes, sizes and colors--who live in and around the 700 block of 8th Street NE support the rights to free speech in the public space.
We simply do not want preachers in our bedrooms.
People who continue to infer the current D.C. noise issue is about anything other than noise have yet to point out a decibel meter's race, gender or content buttons.
Maybe the problem I have with this article is the author tries to cram about twenty stories all together into one tiny article, then makes a big pronouncement that they are all based on race and class issues. Hence, race and class become the issue artificially.
It would have been much better if they'd just zeroed in on singles, and perhaps actually interviewed merchants and neighbors to see how they feel about singles sales.
As written, the article is sortof like every junior high school article I ever read that tried to solve the racism or world hunger or global warming or cheerleading tryout controversy problem in six paragraphs or less, with a few platitudes, stereotypes, and surface-level observations in lieu of actually addressing a particular salient point.
If you read the two Hillscape articles this author wrote on the Old Navy Hospital you'll see a striking difference. The first he wrote on Sept 6 was, shall we say, inflammatory at best, pushing all the race and class buttons without much actual fact, letting selective and unrebutted inflammatory quotes set a rather unfortunate tone. The second, published two weeks later, looks like something his editors made him write after reading how bad his first was. Turns out pretty much all of what was written in his first article was refuted by actual facts in his second.
Unfortunately, his oversimplification and muckraking when not necessary isn't just unfortunate - it's actually harmful and unnecessarily inflammatory.
Seriously? How else do people get from dinner at the argonaut to a show at palace of wonders? I feel like walking in between the bars is a pretty normal thing, but i read a lot of quotes like that on this blog. I really don't think H between 11th and 15th is really that bad on a busy weekend night. Do others disagree?
....not to hijack the thread....
The above comment is a response to...
"since many of the H Street bar patrons aren't walking up and down H to get to and from the bars"
Anon 4:44 (and 4:45) -
I wasn't trying to say that people don't walk between bars on H - certainly they do between 12th and 15th. I'm just saying that the last time I found myself in RnR Hotel on a Saturday night, I was shocked by how bridge and tunnel a lot of the crowd seemed to be, and I don't think they're getting to RnR by foot or on the X2.
So places where you're seeing the most problems, like around 7th and 8th, aren't - I don't think - seeing a lot of traffic from patrons on bars between 12th and 15th. Point being, hipster kids from Arlington aren't pissing on peoples houses on the walk back to the metro, contrary to the apparent assertions of Hodges.
I'm so glad everyone is commenting on this article. I work on the Hill, and I cringed when I read it.
The one thing I need to ask: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to say the same things to the staff at the Hill.
First and foremost, you should direct your comments to Betsy Rothstein, who is the Capitol Living editor. Her email address is betsyr@thehill.com.
Delaney is a contributing writer, which usually means he's not full-time staff (or at least not a full-time writer) and, as such, he doesn't have an email address listed on the site.
This article makes a shallow attempt to appear even-handed about the issue but then presents the reader with a false choice: implying that the city council/you are either anti-poor or racist if city council/you support the ban. (See: "Has Hodge got a point? Or is the city just race crazed?)
Normally, I try to be as civil as possible when commenting on blogs...but what a stupid article. I'm wondering if the writer will think I'm racist if I put flowers on my front porch or sweep up the empty Steel Reserve cans on my block. Will that be seen as a slap in the face of minorities or the poor? H St. neighborhood supported the ban b/c we are tired of seeing our neighborhood look like crap with beer cans all over the place and are tired of people taking leaks on our houses. Period.
My apologies..... Of course it is the Old Naval Hospital, not Old Navy...... Unless Old Navy has sponsored it and just nobody told us....
“Have you ever looked and seen how many people are drunk and urinating coming out of the clubs?” asked Hodge.
--Has Mr. Hodge ever taken a good, close look at the full-time drinking and peeing party at the corner of 7th and H that occurs regularly throughout the day on both weekdays and weekends? His establishment is the sole supporter of it. Same regular cast of neighborhood characters set up shop in the AM, sometimes a few new ones drop by to either drink a few freshly purchased bagged beers and then take a leak on my house. Or perhaps just stop by and take a leak or a dump in the alley. not to mention the amount of street trash it produces. It's become so common, the cops don't even deal with it. I've seen them waiting at the redlight at 7th and H and have a conversation with the party and then drive off. Same with the beat cops on foot. A singles ban wouldn't even be necessary if these folks would exercise some respect and use a public restroom (or one of the many johnny houses along H) and learn to not litter all over the place. Mr. Hodge could do a better job cleaning up the mess that he helps to contribute to, yet I've never seen him pick up the street or water down/clean the alley once.
"Point being, hipster kids from Arlington aren't pissing on peoples houses on the walk back to the metro, contrary to the apparent assertions of Hodges."
Definitely agree you with you there, Kerry. And sorry, wasn't trying to be contradictory, just wanted to be sure my late night jaunts between the argo and the pug aren't risky. Cheers!
Inked, good points. I could have said "a handful of other liquor stores" instead of the way I did it. And "Like THE other stores THAT SELL SINGLES, Family Liquor does a significant amount of business..."
As for Hodge's point about people urinating coming out of the clubs, I noted that that is not something lots of people complain about. He says he sees it after leaving his store, an hour or more after closing time.
My paraphrase of Beatty that Kerry noticed is not unfair. Look at her direct quote at the end.
The purpose of the article was to point out a little trend on H Street NE -- there's always somebody who cries race and class because of a policy being pushed by the local government there. I guess the Frozen Tropics readers agree more with the idea that the city is RACE CRAZED, that Hodge does NOT have a point.
Hillman, I'm a D.C. lifer. But that doesn't mean I'm not young and naive! Help me grow up with letters to adelaney@thehill.com
Thanks
Arthur,
thanks for responding. You absolutely did point out that the public urination thing wasn't a common complaint. I didn't mean to suggest that you mischaracterized her statement, only that it wasn't clear from the article exactly what she did say.
In my experience the singles ban remains fairly controversial and the sides aren't really clearly drawn by either race, or class.
I think the claim that a singles ban must be motivated by antipathy to blacks is itself an incredibly bigoted thing to say. The implicit suggestion in such a comment is that it's somehow part of black culture to drink in public and urinate on other people's porches. News flash: it isn't.
Arthur:
I appreciate you coming on this forum to respond. That shows a lot of guts.
I went back and read my posts here, and I must admit I was a bit harsh on you, given the fact that you have a very limited space in Hillscape. I apologize for that severity.
As you can probably see from the posts in this forum there's a pretty widespread feeling that this article wasn't well received.
Another handicap - so many other articles have been written locally in which the basic mantra seems to be 'poor black people just can't help themselves - they love to drink in public, etc.' and, by extension, 'all the white newcomers hate the poor blacks and are out to destroy black culture by banning singles, insisting on police presence, etc'.......
So when we see things like your Hillscape article it's easy for us to see that as yet another example.
I really do think that if you had the space to do a more indepth article perhaps the reaction would have been much more positive.
Please don't let this discourage you or The Hill from writing about controversial local topics. The last thing we want is a boring Hillscape, where all you cover are local bake sales and use only Chamber-of-Commerce type rah-rah pronouncements about our neighborhoods.
But please also remember that things are not always as they seem on the Hill. There's a whole lot of overblown rhetoric out there, and there's a lot of demagoguery when it comes to race and economic issues in DC. Unfortunately, that sort of rhetoric makes a more interesting story, so that's what is often reported.
The more boring but ultimately more substantial story is that the considerable majority of us want the same things -safer and cleaner streets, more neighborhood stability, and a brighter future, while maintaining a place for anyone that wants to be a positive, contributing member of society.
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