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On Monday afternoon, despite long chairing the D.C. Council committee overseeing alcoholic beverage laws in the District, Council member Jim Graham managed to render himself irrelevant to consideration by his colleagues of Mayor Vincent Gray’s FY 2013 budget proposal to extend alcohol service hours at the city’s bars, restaurants, nightclubs and hotels.

In proposing to hike tax rates for all alcohol sales, Graham has confirmed his status as a legislator out of step with both the mayor and a Council majority opposed to further increasing local tax burdens already among the highest in the nation. His surprising ploy at a full Council budget hearing revealed that he remains outside the realm of mainstream public opinion in demonstrating a never-ending penchant for increased government spending fueled by even higher tax levies.

Worse, his suggestion amounts to converting hospitality businesses, already a primary contributor to city coffers and major component of the local economy, into an ATM from which to snatch additional funds. Graham’s proposal includes retail alcohol sellers for this bank account of his dreams.

Graham proposes raising the excise tax on alcohol, charged to wholesalers and passed on to community businesses and consumers, to a level generating an additional annual yield of $20 million to fund his spending priorities – resulting in an increase of six cents per drink. But he suggests the amount could be set even higher. Charging 10 cents per drink, he pointed out, would raise $34 million.

Why stop there? A dollar-per-drink surcharge would unleash $340 million to finance an even higher budget deficit and more runaway spending. Graham exhibits no hesitation in adding to the current 10 percent sales tax on all alcohol purchases.

D.C. Council member Jack Evans, who chairs the Committee on Finance and Revenue that considers tax proposals, broke the news of this startling development to a gathering of hospitality business leaders at a Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) reception hosted shortly after Graham’s pronouncement. Evans appeared as incredulous announcing Graham’s idea as the assembled restaurant and bar owners were hearing of it.

Ironically, the RAMW event honored former Mayor Anthony Williams with presentation of the prestigious Duke Zeibert Capital Achievement Award, named after the legendary local restaurateur who was, for 44 years, proprietor of the high-profile downtown establishment that bore his name. Williams is credited with bringing Washington back from the brink of financial disaster and ending years of federal control brought on by excessive government spending.

Williams has agreed to chair a newly created nine-member Tax Revision Committee established by the mayor and Council Chair Kwame Brown to review the local tax code. He assured the hometown hospitality business operators that the purpose of the commission is decidedly not one of identifying ways to further increase taxes.

Graham had publicly struggled for weeks to devise a budget-balancing alternative to replace the mayor’s proposal for a modest one-hour extension of the maximum allowable alcohol service period at the city’s bars, restaurants, nightclubs and hotels that he opposes.

Gray’s proposal would join the District with eight states allowing on-premise alcohol sales until 3 a.m. on weeknights and six states that permit sales until 4 a.m. on weekends, in order to eliminate a looming $172 million deficit and enhance the city’s reputation as an evolving world-class city.

Graham will likely suffer additional backlash for abandoning his prior suggestion to allow retail liquor sales on Sundays by eliminating one of the last “blue laws” still in effect in a major metropolis. Although merely an attempt to come up with an alternate revenue source that replaced only a portion of the additional sales tax revenues of later alcohol service hours, he no longer supports it. The idea, however, had quickly proven even more popular among District residents than later bar sales.

In opposing extended alcohol service, Graham has aligned himself with a vocal minority of small citizens groups, church ministers and Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) members who have traditionally engaged as protestants in alcohol licensing battles and opposed Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) reforms.

Now he has unabashedly chosen to push for an increase in taxation to satisfy a reckless take-and-spend philosophy to which he clings.

He well deserves the notoriety and enmity such foolishness will earn him.

Mark Lee is a local small business manager and long-time community business advocate. Reach him at OurBusinessMatters@gmail.com.

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Earline Budd (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Mayor Vincent Gray has nominated transgender activists Earline Budd and Alexandra Beninda for seats on the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.

If the two are confirmed by the City Council, as expected, they would become the first transgender persons to serve on the 15-member commission, which rules on discrimination complaints brought under the comprehensive D.C. Human Rights Act.

The act bans discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and other areas based on an individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as well as other categories such as race, religion, national origin, and ethnicity.

“To be getting one transgender person on the commission would be great, but to be getting two is fantastic,” said Beninda, a systems analyst for a software company and member and former treasurer of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group.

“I’m really excited and looking forward to serving,” said Budd while attending Saturday’s LGBT Youth Pride festival in Dupont Circle. “This is important for the entire community.”

Budd released to the Blade an email she received last week informing her of the appointment.

“I am pleased to inform you that Mayor Vincent C. Gray has transmitted your nomination to the Council of the District of Columbia, where it is pending Council consideration,” said Davida L. Crockett, an official with the city’s Office of Boards and Commissions, in the April 26 email to Budd.

“The Office of Boards and Commissions appreciated your willingness to serve the District, and is confident that you will bring a strong and dedicated commitment and leadership to this public service,” Crockett told Budd in the email.

Alexandra Beninda (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Beninda said she received a similar email informing her of her nomination to serve on the commission.

Pedro Ribeiro, director of the Mayor’ Office of Communications, released to the Blade on Monday a letter from Gray to City Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) dated April 26 that places Budd’s and Beninda’s names in nomination for the Human Rights Commission appointments. Gray’s letter also places in nomination eleven other people he has designated as appointees to the commission.

Budd currently serves as a treatment and healing specialist for Transgender Health Empowerment (THE), a D.C. based transgender advocacy and services organization that she helped found in 1996.

Budd has been credited with playing a key role in transgender advocacy efforts and HIV prevention efforts targeting the transgender and LGBT youth communities in D.C. for over 20 years. Among her duties at THE is to provide training for D.C. government and private sector employees, including employees at the city’s Department of Corrections, on transgender related issues.

In addition to her association with the Stein Club, Beninda is a member of the board of the D.C. LGBT Community Center and serves as treasurer of the D.C. based All Souls Unitarian Church. She says she’s also an active volunteer with D.C. Democracy, a group that advocates for D.C. voting representation in Congress and greater home rule autonomy for the city.

The Commission on Human Rights is an independent agency within the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The OHR investigates discrimination complaints and sends them to the commission for a ruling if the office finds probable cause that discrimination might have taken place. Commissioners are appointed to three-year terms and don’t receive compensation.

Budd’s and Beninda’s appointments come at a time when the Commission on Human Rights has been operating with just three members, with 12 of its 15 seats vacant since January, according to Garrett King, director of the City Council’s Committee on Aging and Community Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the commission.

King said Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who chairs the committee, was looking forward to receiving the names of nominees to fill the vacant positions and

plans to take steps to move the approval process forward as soon as Council Chair Brown forwards the list of nominees to the committee.

Ribeiro said the list of nominees that Gray just sent to the Council, including nominees of Budd and Beninda, would fill all of the vacant positions on the commission.

Among the three remaining members of the commission pending the new appointments are openly gay appointees Christopher Dyer, who served as director of the city’s Office of GLBT Affairs under former Mayor Adrian Fenty; and Michael Ward, an attorney in private practice.

Dyer has completed two terms and isn’t eligible for re-appointment. A request for Ward’s appointment to a second term is included in the list of nominees that Gray sent to the Council on April 26.

In addition to Barry, the other Council members serving on the committee that will oversee the new commission nominees are Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7), and Vincent Orange (D-At-Large).

King said Barry plans to take steps to move the approval process forward as soon as Council Chair Brown forwards the list of nominees to the committee.

“I congratulate the mayor for his choices,” Graham said in referring to Gray’s nomination of Budd and Beninda.

“Miss Budd is a true pioneer on these issues and having her on the commission makes splendid sense,” Graham said.

The late D.C. gay rights leader Frank Kameny was appointed to the Human Rights Commission in 1975 by former Mayor Walter Washington, becoming the first known openly gay appointee to a D.C. government position. Several gay men and lesbians, in addition to Dyer and Ward, have served on the commission in the ensuing years.

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It’s hard work maintaining D.C.’s longstanding status at the very bottom of the barrel as the most “small-business-unfriendly” jurisdiction in the country. Some local elected officials, however, seem determined to repeatedly demonstrate that they remain fully up to the task of preserving the District’s ignominious distinction.

The latest example of this misguided enterprise entanglement and penchant for exceeding the compliance ability of government is a bill introduced last week by the cohorts of what some have begun referring to as the D.C. Council “nanny caucus” — Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1).

A proposed energy bill, heralded in a news release issued by Council member Cheh, includes a provision mandating that local businesses, as well as “commercial properties” such as “office buildings and service facilities,” “keep exterior doors and windows closed when an air conditioner that cools the adjacent area is in operation.”

Pause for eye rolling.

Enforcement would become the responsibility of the District Department of the Environment (DDOE), with fines and penalties to be administered by the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA). No details are offered regarding the number of government workers required to be tasked with inspecting the many thousands of applicable structures on a regular basis, or even if there is an adequate number to be pulled from other priorities to do so.

Exempt under the proposal are enterprises operating only a single business location, commercial properties of less than 4,000 square feet in size, exclusive of storage space, and hotels or restaurants. An odd and troubling omission is the lack of a specified exemption for bars and nightclubs alongside that for restaurants and hotels.

Regulations of this onerous variety are commonly introduced without inquiry or regard for the appraisal of in-house officials evaluating whether the inspection, enforcement and administrative responsibilities exceed the operational and functional capabilities of already overburdened city agencies. And, in order to maintain the perception of cost neutrality, such bills do not include provisions for increased agency staffing or related activity expenses necessary to actually implement such business mandates.

Quibbling over real-world practicalities or considering downstream implications is not the hallmark of other similar efforts by these same legislators. Why allow a perfectly good opportunity to extend the reach and growth of government to get sidetracked by mere bureaucratic details?

Is it not understood that business enterprises, commercial properties and office buildings are doing everything possible to reduce waste and eliminate unnecessary operating expenses? If only the same could be said of our city government.

Monitoring and maintaining energy and other efficiencies are especially critical in a locale with the second highest business taxation rates among states and one of the most heavily taxed places to live.

While most modern buildings are close to hermetically sealed, the practice of propping open or raising a door or two is usually borne of necessity – accommodating patron safety, operational practicality or employee service functions. Examples include heavily trafficked delivery docks and service bays, passageways for patio areas at bars and employee service personnel paths of access.

What, if any, is the energy use differential between seeping air and the nearly ubiquitous standard alternative — sensor-activated automatically sliding doors? Would the proponents deign that local businesses install behemoth electronic doorway structures, perhaps with double-doors creating a sealed “chamber-like” environment? What are the inherent carbon trade-offs of such a costly switch?

This increasingly isolated legislative minority has proven largely unsuccessful in gaining traction for similar initiatives among their colleagues on the 13-member Council. Thank goddess for small mercies.

However, their policy efforts appear limited only by what can be cribbed from the hit lists of special interest groups or that mimic legislatively trendy mandates offered up by hyper-regulatory counterparts in other jurisdictions. A reflexive tendency to meddle in the minutiae of business operation, as if a parent scolding a small child, has become as unflinchingly normal as commerce itself.

Instead of scheming up overzealous and ridiculous new business micromanagement measures of either controversial or counterproductive merit, we would be better served by sensible Council members supportive of local businesses and the revenues they generate.

Let’s hope this latest provision is quickly tossed in the legislative dustbin.

Mark Lee is a local small business manager and long-time community business advocate. Reach him at OurBusinessMatters@gmail.com.

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D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has proposed allowing nightlife venues to extend the time they may serve alcoholic beverages from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. during the week and from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. on weekends. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Customers and owners of the city’s gay bars and nightclubs have joined other city residents in discussing a proposal by Mayor Vincent Gray to allow establishments serving liquor to stay open one hour later each night of the week.

Gray surprised many of the city’s civic activists and Advisory Neighborhood Commission members by attaching the proposal to his fiscal year 2013 budget rather than making it a freestanding bill.

The proposal would allow bars, nightclubs, restaurants and hotels to extend the time they may serve alcoholic beverages from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. during the week and from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. on weekends.

“I think there are probably some who like it and some who don’t,” Gray told the Blade last week at a budget briefing he held in Ward 5. “A lot of people who like nightlife are very supportive of it. There are people who say let’s make this a kind of city that has a global and international feel.”

According to Gray and the city’s chief financial officer, Natwar M. Gandhi, the proposal would yield a projected additional sales and excise tax revenue of $3.21 million for fiscal year 2013 and $12.84 million over a four-year period. Gray said the additional revenue would come at a time when the city faces a possible budget shortfall that could result in cuts to important social services programs.

The proposal must be approved by the 13-member D.C. City Council, which is expected to take up the matter later this month or early next month as part of its consideration of the city budget.

Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who chairs a Council committee that oversees the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), has come out against the proposal. At a committee hearing Tuesday night, Graham said he agrees with concerns raised by civic groups and a number of ANC commissioners that allowing bars and clubs to remain open another hour would have a harmful impact on many neighborhoods throughout the city.

Opponents testified at the hearing that bars and nightclubs in certain parts of the city, especially in Adams Morgan and Georgetown, would result in noise, heavy traffic congestion, and sometimes disturbances and crime in those neighborhoods. Extending by one hour the closing time for such businesses would only prolong the noise and other problems associated with such businesses, several ANC commissioners said.

Among other concerns, Graham said the city’s public transportation system, especially Metro rail service, would not be operating at the time bars close. Thousands of people who consume alcohol and many who are intoxicated might seek to drive home, putting the public in jeopardy, Graham said.

A clear majority of the more than 40 witnesses that testified before Graham’s Committee on Human Services Tuesday night expressed opposition to the proposal. Most of those opposing the proposal were members of neighborhood civic groups and ANC members.

Gay D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large) has yet to take a position on the mayor’s proposal, according to spokesperson Brendan Williams-Kief, who said Catania is assessing the potential impact of extending bar closing hours.

The D.C. Nightlife Association, whose members include many bars and restaurants, including gay bars, strongly supports the proposal, saying it would boost the city’s economy by strengthening a nightlife industry that accounts for a large number of jobs in the city.

Nightlife Association Executive Director Skip Coburn testified that extending the hours of bar closing times would decrease the problems cited by opponents by staggering the times customers leave and ending the current situation where thousands leave the clubs at the current 3 a.m. closing time on weekends.

Gay nightlife advocate Mark Lee, who also testified before the committee, told the Blade that he and others supportive of the proposals don’t believe civic activists and ANC commissioners always represent the sentiment of a majority of the residents in their districts.

“Those testifying in opposition are the traditional opponents to alcohol licensing regulatory reform and are the relatively few individuals and representatives of small civic groups and ANCs who protest liquor licensing applications and battle to impose so-called ‘voluntary agreements’ and operating restrictions on establishments,” Lee said.

“I, for one, did not find the level of participation by opponents at the hearings to be that significant, as they represented only portions of the city, including only a few areas of the city with prominent dining and entertainment districts,” said Lee, who writes a Blade column on city business issues.

Similar to Coburn, Lee said extending closing hours would create a “calming effect” in high-density entertainment areas.

Other nightlife advocates testifying said not all bars and clubs would choose to stay open until 3 a.m. during the week or 4 a.m. on weekends.

Lee, similar other nightlife advocates, urged the Council not to restrict the extended closing hours to certain parts of the city, such as the downtown business district, as some have suggested.

“Not only will doing so impose a distinct competitive disadvantage to businesses outside a targeted zone, but the benefits of naturally staged patron departures will be eliminated by artificially limiting eligibility,” he said.

Ed Bailey, part owner of the D.C. gay nightclub Town and the gay bar Number 9, said he was especially concerned about allowing the extended hours in some locations but not others.

“That would be an unfair advantage to our competitors,” he said.

Bailey said Town, located at Florida Avenue and 8th Street, N.W., already has permission under the terms of its liquor license to stay open until 5 a.m. on weekends as long as alcohol service stops at 3 a.m. He said the club usually stays open until 3:30 or 4 depending on how late customers decide to stay. But he said the extended hours prevent problems faced by other clubs where large numbers of people leave at the same time.

He said Town has yet to take an official position on the mayor’s proposal.

“We want to provide the best possible event for our patron,” he said. “But we also realize we need to respect our neighbors. We want to make sure we don’t step over any boundaries that are inappropriate for the neighborhood.”

An informal survey by the Blade found that most gay bars in the city favor the mayor’s proposal to extend the closing hours, with a number of them saying they may only choose to remain open an additional hour on certain occasions.

Mark Rutstein, general manager of Cobalt, said Cobalt and JR.’s support the mayor’s proposal to extend the time nightlife venues may serve alcohol. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“It would come in handy when we need it,” said Greg Zehnacker, owner of the gay bar Green Lantern near 13th and L streets, N.W. “We would do it at times like Gay Pride week.”

Mark Rutstein, general manager of Cobalt, a gay bar on the 17th Street, N.W. entertainment strip near Dupont Circle, said Cobalt and nearby gay bar JR.’s, which are owned by the same company, support the mayor’s proposal. But he said he and other bar and club owners in the popular 17th Street neighborhood are concerned that existing voluntary agreements with the Dupont Circle ANC could lead to serious financial hardship for those clubs.

Rutstein and other club representatives noted that city officials have said ANC voluntary agreements, which are ratified by the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, would take precedent over the mayor’s proposal for extending bar hours if the ANC agreements call for closing at an earlier hour.

If competing bars and clubs in other parts of the city are not bound by earlier closing hours imposed by ANCs, those establishments could likely draw away customers from the clubs that must close earlier, Rutstein said.

Jerry Griswell, manager of the Dupont Circle gay bar Fireplace, was the only gay bar representative reached who expressed opposition to the mayor’s proposal.

“I don’t like the idea of people drinking another hour at night,” Griswell said. “I don’t think our employees would want to spend another hour at work. I don’t support it.”

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A new apartment building being built across from the Black Cat on 14th Street NW in Washington. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

Construction on 14th Street N.W. in Washington is nothing new — anyone who frequents the uber-gay area has been seeing chain-link fences, closed sidewalks and cranes for months as various massive projects are underway. But with ground now broken for the Louis, the former Utopia spot at 14th and U that will be a mixed-use space featuring 267 new apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail street-level space, it feels like the whole stretch is one massive construction zone from about R to W.

With so many projects underway at once, what effect will all this ultimately have on the street? And what exactly is planned at each spot?

It’s an unusual part of town in the sense that past Thomas Circle and the downtown area, 14th varies extensively in character and nature. Much denser with commercial business than its 13th or 15th street neighbors, 14th encompasses parts of three different neighborhoods (Logan, Columbia Heights and the U Street corridor), several ANC zones and two city wards (one and two). It’s also a street that has seen massive change in the last decade. And if all the construction seems rather sudden, long-time residents and those following city zoning news know these projects have all been in the works for years. Much of the simultaneous ground breaking is due to financing now being more readily available than it was in the few years just after the 2008 stock market crash.

“Those of us who live here have known about these projects for five to six years,” says Ramon Estrada, the 2B09 ANC commissioner that encompasses part of the street. “When a project is approved by zoning, they have a two-year window but for some of these projects, that hit right in the middle of the recessions so they asked the ANC for extensions. We wanted these projects to be built so all we had to do was re-approve them.”

Among the projects underway are:

• The aforementioned Louis, a mixed-use project that will replace the Taco Bell/KFC and other shops formerly on the west side of 14th Street just south of U. The project, according to developer JBG, will be a nine-story, 267-unit apartment building with street-level retail space. JGB partnered with developer Georgetown Strategic Capital after their original plans stalled (the project was originally called Utopia). Construction started in February. JB and Georgetown Strategic Capital are working with architect Eric Colbert & Associates and interior designor Cecconi Simone on the project, according to Urban Turf, a site that monitors new condos and apartments coming to D.C.
• District Condos, another JBG project, is a 125-unit residential project being built at the corner of 14th and S, according to Urban Turf and other sources. This is the spot that was formerly a Whitman-Walker AIDS drop-in clinic. Originally planned as condos, the building will now be studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.
• The massive Jefferson 14W project (Jefferson14w.com), a Perseus Realty and Jefferson Apartment Group project at 14th and W N.W. that will have 231 apartments, a 40,000 square-foot YMCA and 10,000 square feet of street-level retail that’s slated to be finished by fall.
• At 14th and Belmont (the 2400 block), a nine-story highrise that, according to the Prince of Petworth blog, will be 255 condos, street-level retail with underground parking and other amenities. This spot was formerly the Nehemiah Strip Mall.
• View 14 (view14.com) has been finished since 2010 (and has been sold) but still has retail space for rent and represents the new wave of development on the street. The 185-unit building was originally planned as condos but is now rental apartments.
• Level 2 Development plans a seven-story, 144-unit condo building at 1905 and 191714th Street, by the Carpet & Furniture shop. This project is more in the planning stage and has met with some opposition from residents.
• Two condo buildings are going in at14th and R — one in the Verizon building, the other in the former auto repair shop beside Miss Pixie’s. Look for between 30 and 40 condos in each.

Several gay D.C. residents the Blade spoke with said the changes are mostly positive.

“I think first of all on the14th Street corridor there was just enough land available for some of these really cool projects,” says Evan Johnson, a local Realtor who’s gay and has an eponymous real estate group. “Whether they’re apartments or condos, I’d obviously prefer condos since I’m in the sales side, but either way, the more residents it brings in, that brings the opportunity build more stores … I think it provides a tremendous opportunity to clean up some of the older buildings that needed attention and it’s still close enough to Dupont and Logan … that it’s a highly sought-after area. I don’t see any real negative impact.”

As the projects were being considered, City Councilmember Jim Graham (Ward 1) said he had some concerns, but they’ve been addressed.

“I’m certainly glad we’re keeping the post office,” Grahm, who’s openly gay, says. “They will have ground floor space with street access at the Reeve building. I welcome all this new activity because we have worked very hard and very successfully to keep our low income housing. Many of the big buildings north of Florida Avenue are low income apartment buildings which we have not only preserved, but they’ve also been rehabilitated all the way north of the Target. We haven’t lost that diversity and that’s very important as we welcome new people into the area.”

Tim Christensen, president of the Logan Circle Community Association and a Logan resident since 1989, says there are some concerns Logan residents have such as parking restrictions and extended hours for liquor sales, but he’s been active in voicing his concerns and those of his neighbors with their ANC elected officials.

“I’m a huge fan of mixed-use development and we’ve seen a lot of it in Logan through the years,” Christensen, who’s gay, says. “I think one of the biggest challenges for our businesses will be making sure they have enough foot traffic throughout the daytime on Mondays through Fridays. They’re fine in the evenings and on weekends when you have a lot of foot traffic, but if it’s very quiet in these areas during the work week, that can really mean the difference between success and failure for some of our businesses.”

And as for the hustle and bustle of the actual construction? Estrada says he hasn’t heard any significant grumbling about it.

“I think it’s just a temporary inconvenience. All of these neighbors are aware of the extent of how big these projects are so I think everybody is dealing with it just fine. I haven’t received any complaints.”

And why are so many rentals over condos? The reasons, observers say, are complicated. According to Mark Wellborn, editor-in-chief of Urban Turf, large projects have to meet certain sale/percentage benchmarks with non-government financing before they can proceed. Since government-backed financing through entities like FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are how most buyers proceed, that can stymie construction. Projects with rentals don’t have the same requirements.

Observers predict the apartments, once finished, will rent for about $2,500 a month for a one-bedroom and will bring a 15-18 percent increase in residents to the area likely to match a similar spike the area saw since the 2000 census. The new residents are not expected to drastically alter the percentage of LGBT residents in Logan or Columbia Heights.

“I think it will be good for gay people overall,” Graham says.

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D.C. police on Monday arrested a 27-year-old woman in connection with the March 11 shooting of a gay man at the International House of Pancakes restaurant in Columbia Heights that police listed as an anti-gay hate crime.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced that police charged LaShawn Yvonne Carson with aggravated assault while armed.

D.C. Superior Court records show that Carson appeared at a presentment hearing on Monday shortly before the news conference. Court records show that Judge Diana Harris Epps ordered Carson held without bond pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday.

“I am pleased and relieved to announce that a suspect in this dastardly crime has been arrested,” Gray said in a statement released at the news conference.

“As I said at the time of the shooting, while all crime is horrific and destructive to the fabric of our community, hate crimes are particularly insidious because they instill fear in an entire group,” he said. All of our residents should have the right to walk the streets of our neighborhoods free of fear that they will be targeted because of their identities beliefs or characteristics.”

Lanier said at the news conference that although police classified the shooting as a bias crime related to the victim’s sexual orientation, it would be up to the United States Attorney’s Office to decide whether to add a bias related designation to the charge of aggravated assault while armed.

Matt Jones, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said Tuesday that prosecutors with the office don’t make a decision on whether to designate a case as a hate crime until it comes before a grand jury further along in the prosecution.

“Our investigation in the case is onging,” he said. “That is not something we normally charge at this point.”

Under the D.C. hate crimes law, those convicted of a hate designated crime of violence are subjected to a greater penalty, including additional time served in prison.

“This is an enormous relief,” said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), in commenting on the arrest. Graham, who’s gay and who spoke at the news conference, called the shooting “an insane act” that created an atmosphere of fear in the community.

“To shoot somebody at breakfast in a public restaurant over a perceived slight is insane behavior by any standard,” he said “So this is a great relief for the community that I represent,” said Graham, noting that the IHOP restaurant is located in his ward.

Police said the 31-year-old male victim in the shooting reportedly had been subjected to anti-gay name calling. The victim’s cousin, who was present during the incident, told the Blade that a scuffle broke out near the entrance of the restaurant when the woman and two male friends blocked the victim’s path when he got up to pay the bill. Police said witnesses saw a scuffle break out and heard the firing of a gun.

Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham said last week that the incident may have been captured on a video surveillance system at the restaurant.

Police said the victim had been treated in a hospital for a non-life threatening gunshot wound.

The shooting took place one day before two other incidents of anti-LGBT violence surfaced in the city. A 29-year-old gay man was badly beaten and robbed a short distance away at Georgia Avenue and Irving Streets, N.W. about 9:30 p.m. on March 12. Police and the victim’s partner said attackers called the victim anti-gay names.

Police listed the incident as an anti-gay hate crime

At about 11:45 p.m. that same day, a transgender woman was knocked unconscious at West Virginia Avenue and Mt. Olivet Road, N.E. by at least two assailants, police said. Police said the woman was unable to hear whether the attackers used anti-trans language during the attack and have insufficient evidence so far to list the incident as a hate crime.

The three incidents prompted friends of the 29-year-old victim to organize a march through the streets of Columbia Heights and other parts of the city last week to draw attention to anti-LGBT violence. Close to 700 people turned out for the event.

“I would like to thank the mayor, chief of police and the MPD for the swift response and arrest of a suspect in the heinous shooting of a member of the LGBT community at the IHOP in Columbia Heights,” said gay activist Peter Rosenstein. “No one, no matter what their cultural background, color or sexual orientation should feel unsafe in our community.”

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Mayor's Office LGBT liaison Jeffrey Richardson, and council members Muriel Bowser and Jim Graham join D.C. residents in calling for an end to anti-LGBT violence. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

As many as 700 people turned out for a march through the streets of Washington, D.C., Tuesday night to take a stand against anti-LGBT violence following separate attacks against two gay men and a transgender woman during a two-day period earlier this month.

Friends of one of the two gay male victims, who organized the march, said they were astonished over the outpouring of support that emerged from the LGBT community and city officials, including D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and four members of the City Council.

“It was a Facebook event and I expected maybe 15 to 50 people to show up,” said Patrick Pressman, one of the lead organizers. “And then from there it just exploded,” he said. “It got to where it was today, when it was estimated that about 700 people were going to attend.”

Pressman said he is a friend of a 29-year-old gay man who was robbed and badly beaten on March 12 by assailants who called him anti-gay names at Georgia Avenue and Irving Street, N.W.

The march started outside the International House of Pancakes restaurant at 14th and Irving streets, N.W., in Columbia Heights, where a 31-year-old gay man was shot about 6 a.m. Sunday, March 11, in what police say was an altercation with two men who called him anti-gay names.

Lanier, who spoke to the marchers as they gathered outside the IHOP restaurant, said she expects an arrest in the case soon, saying she is “very pleased” with the progress of the investigation.

“We have everybody working on this and I think everybody’s committed,” she said. “We kind of take it personally when people in our community are targeted.”

SEE DOZENS OF PICTURES FROM THE MARCH IN THE WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO GALLERY HERE.

Police said the victim of the IHOP shooting was fortunate to have received a non-life threatening gunshot wound. His cousin, who was with him at the time of the shooting, said the victim was expected to be released from the hospital this week after being treated for a punctured liver.

Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who participated in the march, said he was especially concerned that two of the incidents took place in his ward. He said the large showing of support for the march demonstrates that the community is outraged over anti-LGBT violence.

From the IHOP, the march traveled east on Irving Street to Georgia Avenue, the site where the 29-year-old gay man was attacked and beaten about 9:30 p.m. on March 12.

Police said the transgender woman was attacked and knocked unconscious about 11:45 that same night at the intersection of West Virginia Avenue and Mt. Olivet Road, N.E. People who know the victim said she reported later that she was not robbed and thought the attack was motivated by anti-transgender bias.

But police say, unlike the other two incidents, they have not listed the case as a hate crime because they don’t have sufficient evidence for such a classification. Assistant D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham told a meeting of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club Monday night that investigators were looking for witnesses who might have heard whether the attackers hurled anti-trans names at the victim.

Hundreds of marchers joined the hastily assembled march organized after a recent spate of anti-gay violence in the nation's capital. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Newsham said investigators believe the three incidents were unrelated, with the attacks carried out by different groups of perpetrators.

The march paused when it reached the site where the 29-year-old gay man was attacked at Georgia Avenue and Irving Street.

“I want to say that this walk should never have to happen again in our city,” said D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large). “We have to do more. We must do more,” he said. “And for those who know about this horrific situation that took place, I’m begging you to come forth. Give us information … to bring these folks to justice.”

Brown was referring to reports by police that many people were on the street in the vicinity of the attack at the time it occurred.

Council members Michael Brown (D-At-large) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) also participated in the march, saying they were in solidarity with the LGBT community in seeking ways to curtail hate violence against all city residents.

Also participating in the march was Jeffrey Richardson, director of Mayor Vincent Gray’s Office of LGBT Affairs, and Gustavo Velasquez, director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights. Richardson spoke at the gathering outside the IHOP restaurant.

Among those speaking at the Georgia Avenue and Irving Street site was A.J. Singletary, president of the D.C. group Gays and Lesbian Opposing Violence (GLOV). Singletary said he learned from the 29-year-old gay victim’s partner that the victim had been released from the hospital Tuesday, the day of the march.

“His jaw was shattered in two places,” said Singletary. “After two surgeries he now has permanent titanium plates holding his lower jaw together. In addition, his jaw is wired shut for the next four to six weeks.”

A.J. Singletary, Kwame Brown, Jim Graham, and Michael Brown at the rally. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The march continued south on Georgia Avenue to U Street, where it turned right and traveled to 14th Street. From there, with spectators looking on from the sidewalks, it traveled south on 14th to R Street, where it turned right and continued to its termination at 17th Street next to the gay bar Cobalt. Many of the marchers entered Cobalt, which hosted a fundraiser for the victim attacked at Georgia Avenue and Irving Street.

Gay Democratic activist Cartwright Moore, a member of the staff of D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, said many of the march participants were young LGBT people who don’t ordinarily attend meetings of local LGBT organizations.

“It’s been great that the community has come together on an issue like this,” said D.C. resident Chris Shank, who said he learned about the march through a Facebook invitation.

“I marched the entire way,” he said. “I’m really glad it was organized. I think the response has been enormous.”

The event was largely organized through social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and the overwhelming number of young people in the crowd reflected these new media organizing tactics. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

D.C. resident Phillip Pratt said he, too, learned of the event through Facebook. He said he became motivated to get involved after seeing that just a few days after organizers posted the event more than 500 people had committed to joining the march.

“I think it was very important to come out and march for this, to march with them and show our support,” he said.

Vic Suter said she wanted to take a stand against violence targeting her own community.

“Whether there be a thousand people marching down the street or five, it says that people are not going to tolerate such behavior and that we need to bring about tolerance and we need to teach the community that people are people regardless of who they love,” she said.

Asked if he thought the event would have an impact on the community, Singletary said he was hopeful that it would.

“We have a group of many hundreds walking down the middle of the street down major thoroughfares in D.C. where a lot of hate crimes have occurred,” he said while marching. “You’re talking about U Street, you’re talking about 14th Street. The street we’re on now is R. There have been a lot of attacks on this street itself. So the response by the community has been big and rightfully so.”

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Hundreds of people took to the streets of Columbia Heights on Tuesday evening to protest the recent spate of anti-LGBT violence. The march was organized largely through a Facebook event page calling for a “Silent March for Victims of GLBT Violence.” Read the full story here.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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Lateefah Williams, president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, is one of 12 LGBT candidates among the 92 competing for 14 delegate spots to the National Democratic Convention. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Twelve LGBT candidates are running to become delegates to the Democratic National Convention in D.C.’s Democratic presidential caucus, which is set to take place Saturday, March 3, at the University of the District of Columbia.

The 12 LGBT candidates are among a total of 92 candidates competing at the caucus for just 14 delegate positions and one alternate delegate post. They are pledged to support President Barack Obama, who is running unopposed for the 2012 Democratic Party nomination.

Among the LGBT candidates are Lateefah Williams, president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club; Jeffrey Richardson, former Stein Club president and director of the Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs; former Stein Club president and D.C. Council staffer David Meadows, and transgender activist and Stein Club treasurer Alexandra Beninda.

Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) initially submitted his name as a delegate candidate but this week withdrew from the race.

“Just like in past years, the people who win are the ones who can turn out the most supporters to vote for them,” said Bill O’Field, executive director of the D.C. Democratic Party, which is organizing the caucus.

D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) has said he is arranging for buses to bring senior citizens and other Ward 8 voters to the caucus to support his candidacy for delegate.

O’Field said the caucus is scheduled to take place between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday. He said any D.C. resident who is a registered Democrat is eligible to vote in the caucus, which is to take place at the UDC Auditorium, Building 46 East, near Connecticut Avenue and Van Ness Street, N.W.

According to O’Field, participants can vote any time during the three-hour caucus and don’t have to stay for candidate speeches.

Gay Democratic activists throughout the country, led by the National Stonewall Democrats, are pushing to elect as many out LGBT people as possible as delegates to the Democratic Convention. The convention takes place the week of Sept. 3 in Charlotte, N.C. Among other things, LGBT Democrats want the convention’s platform committee to approve a plank in support of legal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Under D.C. Democratic Party rules, the city is divided into two voting districts for the purpose of selecting delegates to the convention: Voting District 1 includes Wards 1, 2, 6 and 8; and Voting District 2, which includes Wards 3, 4, 5 and 7.

The LGBT candidates running in Voting District 1 include Lateefah Williams, Adam Bink, Kevin Scott Carroll, Gregory Cendana, Jonathan Degner, David Meadows, Alexander Padro and Jeffrey Richardson.

The LGBT contenders running in Voting District 2 include Alexandra Beninda, Aadit Dubale, Philip Skillman and Sterling Washington.

O’Field said D.C. Democrats who cannot attend the caucus on Saturday may cast their vote for delegate candidates at the D.C. Democratic Party office on Thursday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The office is located at 1050 17th St., N.W., Suite 1000. O’Field said voters wishing to do this should call him first to make an appointment at 202-714-3368 or contact him by email at dcdemocraticparty@gmail.com.

LGBT activists planning to attend a memorial interment ceremony for the late gay leader Frank Kameny, which is scheduled to take place on the same day as the caucus, expressed an interest in voting at the party office rather than risk arriving at the caucus too late to vote.

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Jim Graham. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

A Ward 5 civic activist and supporter of former Mayor Adrian Fenty has filed papers with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics to begin the process of seeking a recall election to oust Mayor Vincent Gray and Council Chair Kwame Brown, both Democrats, from office.

The activist, Frederick Butler, says he also plans to file papers seeking a recall election against gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3).

Butler has said each of the four elected officials were responsible for encouraging or failing to take steps to prevent corruption in government. He said Graham should be held responsible for the arrest in 2009 and guilty plea last year of his former chief of staff, Ted Loza, for accepting a “gratuity” from a taxicab industry official seeking to influence taxi related legislation then pending before the Council.

Federal authorities that investigated Loza said Graham was not implicated in the alleged corruption scheme. Last June, a federal judge sentenced Loza to eight months in prison.

Graham could not be immediately reached for comment.

Most political observers say Butler lacks the financial resources and support for the difficult task of obtaining 45,000 petition signatures within the next 180 days to place a recall election for Gray and Brown on the ballot in the November election. He would need signatures from 10 percent of the registered voters in Wards 1 and 3 to place Graham and Cheh on the ballot for a recall election in November. Observers note that attempts have been made to recall every previous mayor accept Walter Washington and all of them failed to obtain the signatures needed to place a recall on the ballot.

Butler is a friend and protégé of Fenty’s controversial supporter and college fraternity brother Sinclair Skinner, who came under investigation by the City Council after his company, Liberty Engineering and Design, received city contracts under the Fenty administration that critics said were due to cronyism.

Skinner came under fire from gay activists during one of Graham’s re-election campaigns when news surfaced that he distributed anti-gay fliers attacking Graham on behalf of one of Graham’s opponents in the Democratic primary.

Local gay activists Rick Rosendall and Peter Rosenstein, who backed Gray for mayor in the 2010 election, said they see no interest within the LGBT community for recalling Gray, Brown, Graham, or Cheh. Gay Democratic activist John Fanning, who supported Fenty in the 2010 mayoral election, said he, too, has no interest in seeing the four officials subjected to recall.

“I won’t sign the petition,” said Fanning. “My feeling is why don’t we wait until the next regular election and let the voters decide then.”