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By: BRIAN MOYLAN COMMENTS
 
It’s the closing credits for Visions Cinema. After a final party on Sunday,
Sept. 26, the movie house shut its doors for good.
Visions, at 1927 Florida Ave., NW, had been a favorite of Dupont Circle movie
fans and often screened small films by gay and local filmmakers that wouldn’t
have had a venue otherwise.
“We resuscitated specialty films in D.C. when no one was opening them
for a long time,” says Andrew Frank, founder and owner of Visions. “We
helped raise the bar for the quality of films in D.C.”
Since the cinema opened in August 2000, a number of larger theaters have opened
in the area and are now vying for Visions’ share of the market.
“It was essentially a chain of events that really was driven by a very
fast number of new screens opening up over a short period of time,” Frank
says.
Those screens include multiplex Loews Theatres Georgetown, Landmark’s
specialty houses E Street Cinema downtown and Bethesda Row Cinema in Maryland,
and the Avalon Theatre, a historic non-profit movie house.
“Even when we were doing well, we weren’t making a killing,”
Frank says.
“We were scraping by and then we were trying to stay alive and then we
realized we weren’t able to get out of the hole.”
With the closing of Visions and the Cineplex Odeon Janus, 1660 Connecticut
Ave., NW, in 2002, Dupont Circle is now left with only one movie theater, Loews
Cineplex Dupont Circle, 1350 19th St., NW, which regularly carries gay-themed
movies.
Frank said he thinks that Dupont Circle is still a viable market, but the changing
face of the neighborhood is bringing a different movie-going crowd.
“Real estate values have gone so high that the artistic people have gone
farther and farther east,” he said. “Those people are getting closer
to downtown, and that’s why I think E Street [Cinema] is doing so well.”
The Fab Lounge, a proposed gay bar at 1805 Connecticut Ave., NW, was scheduled
Sept. 30 to take a step toward getting its liquor license when members of the
Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission were to meet with owner Frez
Teame and his lawyer Andrew Kline.
The two parties were in talks to draft a “voluntary agreement”
related to hours of operation for the bar. The Dupont ANC formally protested
Fab’s application for a liquor license until such an agreement is met.
ANC Commissioner Rob Halligan said that if Teame signs an agreement after negotiations,
the ANC will lift its protest.
If the two parties cannot reach an agreement, Teame will have to appeal to
the city’s Alcohol Beverage Control board to obtain a license.
About one-third of all liquor licenses in the city are tied to such agreements,
which put certain restrictions on a venue’s operating hours, type of music
and other factors.
Members of the Dupont ANC told the Blade in September that they would likely
be looking for Fab to close earlier than the 2 a.m. weeknight and 3 a.m. weekend
closing time mandated by the city.
The Fab Lounge is a proposed 80-person lounge on the corner of Florida and
Connecticut Avenues, NW, above the Royal Palace, a straight nightclub that features
female dancers.
In other Dupont Circle nightlife news, it appears that nothing has been done
with Mr. P’s, the gay bar near the corner of 22nd and P Streets, NW that
closed in January. The signs and awnings still carry the bar’s name, but
a peek inside the grimy windows show the bar looks just the same as when it
closed.
One of the oldest gay bars in the city, Mr. P’s was the first gay bar
in Dupont Circle when it opened in 1974. In 1993, John Mako, formerly a partner
in the business, became the sole owner of the bar, which he sold in April 2003
to Bouzid, Inc., a company that owns the Odeon Restaurant in Dupont Circle and
Paper Moon in Georgetown.
Jamal Bouzid, owner of the company, told the Blade in January that renovations
on a new bar/lounge/restaurant in the Mr. P’s space were scheduled to
begin on Jan. 15 and would take at least six months, but no time table was set.
No renovations have been started as of this week.
Bouzid did not return calls seeking comment by press time.
Brian Moylan can be reached at bmoylan@washblade.com.
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