Sep 08, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Gay event promoter Mark Lee issued an e-mail alert to hundreds of gay bar customers and nightlife advocates last week calling the 39th Annual Dupont Circle House Tour, set for Oct. 15, an “anti-business” fundraiser.

Lee said he hoped to renew a decade-old debate over whether the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, which sponsors the house tour, is using the event as a disguised fundraiser to retain lawyers to help it block the approval of liquor licenses for restaurants and bars, including gay bars.

“We want to remind people that the house tour is the main fundraising event to bankroll the DCCA’s efforts to oppose liquor licenses,” Lee said.

Lee operated the gay dance party Lizard Lounge in a Dupont Circle area nightclub until earlier this year. He has become one of the city’s strongest advocates for nightlife businesses, both gay and straight, and against a smoking ban that was adopted by the District and goes into effect Jan. 1.

DCCA treasurer Nancy Hartsock said she could not provide a breakdown of the percentage of the house tour funds that go to efforts to fight liquor licenses by press time. But she said “most” of the house tour funds go to projects and activities other than liquor license related matters.

In the past, DCCA officials have said the group holds its popular house tour to raise funds for a number of projects, including advocacy of historic preservation of the Dupont Circle neighborhood’s Victorian townhouses and mansions, which are highlighted by the tour. According to the DCCA website, the group also promotes clean streets and alleys, the planting and upkeep of trees, public safety, and the retention of a diverse, residential character of the Dupont Circle neighborhood.

This year, the group is charging $25 for advance tickets for the tour and $30 for tickets sold on the day of the event.

‘Slush fund’ to block
liquor licenses?

While these activities have attracted widespread support, nightlife advocates and restaurant and bar owners began raising concerns about 10 years ago over the DCCA’s practice of filing legal protests against liquor license applications for Dupont Circle area businesses.

Around that time, the Dupont Circle gay bookstore Lambda Rising stopped selling tickets for the event on behalf of the DCCA over objections to the group’s opposition to nightlife businesses, owner Deacon Mccubbin said.

Two years ago, the nearby clothes and souvenir store operated by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group, also stopped selling tickets for the tour. HRC officials ended the store’s involvement in the tour after local gay businesses that contributed to money to HRC complained about the DCCA’s opposition to the licenses of several gay bars.

The InTowner newspaper, which reports on Dupont Circle area news, drew more attention to the group’s liquor license actions in a series of stories that focused on the emerging conflict between the neighborhood’s older and newer residents.

The old-liners preferred a quite, residential-only setting, while the newer, younger residents who moved into the city from the suburbs and other cities embraced nightlife businesses such as bars and nightclubs, the InTowner reported.

Several of the articles were written by gay activist Michael Romanello, who later left the paper and organized a campaign to boycott the DCCA house tour. Romanello charged that the majority of the house tour revenue went to a legal “slush fund” to oppose gay and straight nightlife businesses that had the support of a large majority of the residents.

Bill Glew, DCCA’s immediate past president, told the Blade last year that the group has a policy of filing legal protests against all liquor license applications during the initial stage of the city’s liquor license approval process.

Glew said DCCA uses the protests to strengthen its bargaining position in a city-approved process that encourages civic groups and citizen-elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissions to work out “voluntary agreements” with bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. The agreements usually include requirements imposed by the civic groups or ANCs that call for earlier closing times and restrictions on dancing or live entertainment.

“In almost all cases, we don’t want these places to close,” Glew said. “We want to work out an amicable agreement.”

Glew made his remarks last year at a time when DCCA and a separate group of six nearby residents filed protests against a license application for Hank’s Oyster Bar, an upscale seafood restaurant that lesbian chef Jamie Leeds had hoped to open without a protracted fight over a liquor license.

DCCA eventually dropped its protest after Leeds agreed to close at an earlier hour and to refrain from serving hard liquor in ...