Councilman Jim Graham’s controversial ‘One-Time Relocation of Licensees Displaced by the Ballpark Amendment Act’ is slated to be on City Council’s agenda Tuesday. (Blade photo by Henry Linser)
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LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, June 01, 2007
Opposition intensified this week to legislation that would allow gay and straight adult entertainment clubs displaced by D.C.’s new baseball stadium to relocate to other parts of the city.
Gay activists said the controversy turned ugly when some residents of Ward 5 began posting anti-gay messages on Internet chat rooms to voice their dislike for gay bars. The postings surfaced after the residents learned that some of the clubs planned to move to a warehouse and industrial district in the ward’s Ivy City section.
“These lifestyles are not well accepted ethically, religiously and otherwise,” wrote someone identified as “funner09” in an online newsgroup for residents of the ward’s Brookland section. “[T]hese sinners include prostitutes, thieves, gays, etc. who need to change their worldly and evil ways.”
Another message posted on the newsgroup asked, “What about these neighborhoods screams ‘gay clubs come reside…’ I purchased in my neighborhood/ward because it did NOT have these establishments,” the writer said.
The club relocation legislation, introduced by gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), is scheduled to come up for a vote in City Council on Tuesday.
Councilmember Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5), who has led opposition to the relocation bill, said he is troubled over the anti-gay tone of some of the news group messages, saying they do not represent the views of most residents of the ward.
“It is unfortunate that this is being seen as an anti-gay issue,” Thomas said. “What I’ve been calling for is a fair and equitable process that avoids having these businesses clustered in one area in my ward.”
Thomas said the opposition voiced by most of his constituents is over the adult nature of the business and nude dance entertainment and is not related to whether the clubs are gay or straight. He said that as far as he is concerned, gays and non-adult-oriented gay businesses are welcome in Ward 5.
But gay Ward 5 resident Brian Kerr said Thomas was partially responsible for stirring up hostility toward gays and gay clubs by using “divisive, wedge-issue politics” to oppose the club relocation legislation.
“Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. is certainly not an openly anti-GLBT bigot,” Kerr said in one of his own postings on an Internet site for Ward 5’s Brookland neighborhood. “But he doesn’t have to be. We do know Mr. Thomas has a number of insensitive and/or openly homophobic allies.”
“A few of these allies have now posted to this Brookland listserv some of the most vile, anti-GLBT smears and hate speech I have ever encountered in my many years in Brookland,” he said. Thomas has yet to publicly and visibly speak out against the anti-gay messages, Kerr said.
Graham’s bill, the “One-Time Relocation of Licensees Displaced by the Ballpark Amendment Act,” would allow the displaced clubs to move to commercial and industrial zones in any part of the city and does not single out Ward 5. He said the bill was needed to prevent the displaced clubs from being permanently forced out of business.
At least four of the displaced clubs that catered to a mostly gay clientele and offered entertainment that included nude dancing have been closed for more than a year.
Owners and employees of the clubs have said that after an extensive search for locations to reopen, they determined that industrial and warehouse districts in the Ivy City section of Ward 5 presented the best possible site for reopening. According to the club owners, the Ivy City warehouse sections are among the few remaining areas in the city that are removed from residential neighborhoods.
Club owners and attorneys representing them have said restrictions in the city’s liquor and zoning laws that Graham’s bill does not address would make it difficult if not impossible for the clubs to reopen in the city’s downtown business district.
Thomas was scheduled to have a second community meeting to discuss the Graham bill as the Blade went to press Wednesday. Opponents of the Graham bill, including a minister, denounced adult entertainment businesses at an earlier meeting organized by Thomas two weeks ago at a Baptist church in Ivy City.
Kerr said he and other gay residents of Ward 5 believe Thomas “stacked” the meetings with opponents of the Graham bill in an effort to exaggerate the opposition and discourage supporters of the bill from speaking out.
Thomas disputed this assertion, saying he chose sites where most community meetings in the ward take place. He said he plans to hold a third meeting about the Graham bill in a public school building next week.
Graham, meanwhile, said he hopes to reach a “middle ground” with Thomas and other opponents of his bill before Tuesday’s Council vote.
“I’m in discussion over a possible middle ground in response to the concerns of the Ward 5 community,” he said.
“It’s right now kind of a moving object. So we haven’t pinned it down. We are trying our best.”
Graham’s talk of a possible compromise came after other Council members, including gay Councilmember David Catania (D-At-Large), expressed some reservations over Graham’s bill. They had initially expressed support for allowing the displaced clubs to relocate.
“I’m not sure where I am on this, but I’ve got to be honest with you, there is some equity on the part of these businesses,” the Washington Times quoted Catania as saying to a group of opponents who approached him outside his office at city hall.
“The solution is to find a way to distribute these businesses in a way so there’s no over concentration,” the Times quoted him as saying.
Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, which has lobbied Council in support of Graham’s bill, said he was troubled over what he called “inflammatory rhetoric” surfacing against the legislation.
“We are focusing on the merits of the issue and trying to avoid escalating the tone of the rhetoric,” he said. “Feeding the tone of hysteria and rancor gets in the way of our message, which is one of general fairness for these displaced businesses.”
Rosendall said GLAA is concerned that Thomas’ planned amendments to Graham’s bill, which some Council members are now considering, could eliminate any chance for the clubs to reopen.
“There is no point in passing a bill that you amend to death,” he said. “If you amend away the remedy, then you have defeated the bill.”
“We have an international, cosmopolitan city,” Rosendall said. “People expect a nightlife where they have choices. To erase gay-oriented adult entertainment from the map of the city is wrong.”
Thomas said that among the amendments he is considering is a requirement that the city allow the displaced clubs to move into the zone where the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium is located. City officials have long said they want restaurants, hotels and other businesses to move near the new stadium, but any talk of adult entertainment businesses near the ballpark is likely to draw strong opposition.
Club owners have pointed out the stadium is not scheduled to open until April 2008 and that nearby buildings intended to accommodate businesses may not be built until several years later. Gay nightlife advocate Mark Lee has said the displaced entertainment businesses could not survive a prolonged period in which they remain closed.
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