May 04, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) will arrange for the committee he chairs to vote May 8 on a bill that would allow some of the gay bars and nightclubs displaced by the Washington Nationals baseball stadium to move to new locations, Graham said this week.

He said he hopes his Committee on Public Works & the Environment would approve the bill that day and report it to the full Council, where a vote could take place as soon as May 15.

But Graham, who wrote and introduced the bill in February, said the legislation allowing a one-time-only relocation of certain nude dance clubs to non-residential areas is controversial and is likely to encounter opposition from some of his Council colleagues.

“This will take a lot of work politically,” he said. “I was hoping the ABC Board would resolve this.”

Graham was referring to an April 19 vote by the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board denying an application by one of the displaced clubs, Edge-Wet, to move to a warehouse district in Northeast Washington. The board ruled that existing law prevented Edge-Wet from reopening at its new site because it was in a different sub zone from the one it operated in previously, even though both zones are similar, non-residential warehouse and commercial districts.

Graham’s bill, the One-Time Relocation of Licensees Displaced by the Stadium Amendment Act of 2007, would overturn the ABC Board ruling on a one-time basis for the bars and nightclubs displaced by the new stadium.

Last year, the city invoked eminent domain to force six adult-oriented gay businesses located directly in the stadium’s “footprint” to close. The businesses had operated for more than 20 years in a gay entertainment strip in a desolate warehouse area on O Street, S.E., that veteran gay activist Frank Kameny said was created when police forced the businesses out of the downtown area in the 1970s.

Another two businesses catering to gays operating two blocks from the stadium — Edge-Wet and Nation nightclub — were displaced by stadium-related real estate development. Edge-Wet offered male nude dancers as a form of entertainment similar to some of the other gay clubs on O Street.

Although Edge-Wet announced earlier this year that it was changing from a gay to a straight nightclub, the liquor board’s ruling applies to the O Street gay clubs that had planned to move into the same area in Northeast as Edge-Wet. Club owners have said the area, in the Ivy City section of Ward 5, is one of the few non-residential areas left in the city suitable for adult entertainment businesses.

One of the Council’s strongest supporters of gay rights, Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who represents gay neighborhoods in Dupont Circle, has long been a strong opponent of nude dancing and could play a key role in determining the fate of Graham’s bill, according to city hall insiders. Evans has said he supports efforts to allow the gay clubs displaced by the stadium to move to new locations, but he has yet to say whether he would support legislation allowing gay clubs with nude dancing to reopen.

Gay activists have noted that Evans wrote most of the city laws restricting nude dancing that are now preventing the clubs displaced by the stadium from finding new locations.

When Graham introduced an earlier version of his bill last year, Ward 5 civic activists joined clergy from nearby churches in expressing strong opposition, saying adult entertainment businesses would be harmful to their community. In a community meeting called by former Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5), residents in nearby neighborhoods said adult businesses would have a negative impact on children and teenagers.

A few people attending the meeting denounced homosexuality as immoral and against the teachings of the Bible, saying they could never support a gay business in their ward.

Orange called Graham’s bill as an effort to “dump” undesirable businesses in Ward 5. He brushed aside Graham’s argument that the bill did not single out Ward 5 and would give the displaced businesses a chance to apply to the liquor board to relocate in non-residential areas throughout the city similar to the areas where they were before.

Harry Thomas Jr. has since replaced Orange as the Ward 5 Councilmember after Orange gave up his seat in an unsuccessful run for mayor. During his own election campaign, Thomas told a meeting of civic activists in the ward’s Brookland section that he, too, opposed the Graham bill.

However, Thomas gave a different assessment of his views on the displaced clubs in his answer to a candidate questionnaire from ...