Feb 17, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

changes," he said. "This is a big city. I would be surprised if there weren’t appropriate places in many parts of the city for these clubs to move."

Orange made his position known at a Ward 5 community meeting that he called last month to promote opposition to allowing the gay businesses to move into his ward. Orange told the meeting, held in a Baptist church, that the adult gay businesses would interfere with the type of economic development that he and other community leaders are promoting in the ward.

Mayoral candidate Johns, former telecommunications executive, said she would call on the Zoning Commission to take up the issue and hand down a decision on whether the zoning law should be changed. But Johns said she would need more information on the matter before she could giver her support for such a change.

"It’s a tough decision," Johns said. "These are adult businesses, and I understand that we have to be careful about where they move."

Noting that real estate development is rapidly encroaching on the city’s few remaining industrial sections, Johns said there no longer may be places left in the city for the O Street businesses.

"It may be a reality that their lifecycle is coming to an end," she said.

Mayoral contender and D.C. Council chair Linda Cropp did not respond to telephone calls by press time, nor did candidate Michael Brown.

Laws in conflict

During his Ward 5 community meeting, Orange expressed strong opposition to a bill proposed by gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham that called for easing liquor law restrictions to enable some of the O Street businesses to move to new locations.

Graham’s bill would have allowed all businesses with liquor licenses that are expected to be displaced by the baseball stadium to move to a zone in other parts of the city that are zoned identical to the one in which they are now located. Graham withdrew his bill after learning that the more restrictive zoning law would override the liquor law change he proposed, making his bill unenforceable.

An attorney representing one of the O Street clubs has since argued that the zoning law restriction could be interpreted to allow nude dancing as long as no sexual activity takes place. The showing of adult X-rated videos or films or the sale of sexually explicit magazines or books by two of the O Street businesses would not meet the restrictions under the zoning law, said attorney Andrew Kline. Those businesses could not move without a zoning law change, Kline said.