Local
D.C. co-op guilty of anti-gay discrimination
Commission says board twice refused to allow gay couple to buy apartment
Thad Kemp (Photo courtesy of Kemp)
In a little noticed action, the D.C. Commission on Human Rights ruled last April that the president and board of directors of a cooperative apartment building on Connecticut Avenue violated the city’s Human Rights Act by twice refusing to allow a gay couple to buy an apartment.
The case is unusual because the commission’s decision came more than 15 years after Thad S. Kemp and his then partner William L. Houston filed a discrimination complaint with the city’s Office of Human Rights against 2101 Connecticut Avenue Cooperative Apartments, Inc.
The complaint charged the upscale building, located across the street from the Chinese Embassy, with using a series of pretexts to deny the couple’s application to buy an apartment in the building on two separate occasions in 1997 because of their sexual orientation and their status as a mixed race couple. Kemp is white and Houston is black.
The building has appealed the commission’s decision before the D.C. Court of Appeals, arguing, among other things, that the commission’s recommended decision was made by an administrative law judge who did not preside over a three-day hearing in which key witnesses testified.
Attorney Stephen Horvath, who is representing 2101 Connecticut Avenue Co-op, notes in an appeal brief that the original chief hearing examiner who presided over the case, Cornelius Alexander, died in 2007 before reaching a decision. Horvath argues the administrative law judge for the commission who handed down the decision, Dianne Harris, wasn’t present at the hearing to see the witnesses testify and assess their credibility.
Harris states in her recommended decision that she carefully read the transcript of all testimony viewed and studied the exhibits and documents entered into evidence and obtained a full and impartial picture of the case. She disputes claims by Horvath that past court rulings require that a hearing examiner or judge be present during testimony by witnesses in order to issue a ruling on a civil case.
Harris noted that while she was not present during testimony in the 2003 evidentiary hearing to determine whether the co-op board and its president, John Rodler, were liable for the alleged discrimination, she did preside over a separate hearing to assess what the damages and penalty for the co-op should be.
The commission’s final decision and order, handed down on April 23, 2012, shows that then commissioners Christopher Dyer and Nkechi Jaifa voted to approve Harris’s recommended decision that the co-op and Rodler engaged in discrimination based on sexual orientation and racial discrimination against Kempt and Houston.
The third commissioner assigned to the case, gay attorney Michael Ward, dissented from the majority, saying he agreed with the co-op’s attorney that Harris should not have ruled on the case without having personally attended the hearing in question.
Michael Ward of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“Although I believe that there is adequate testimony from which the commission might infer liability, I believe that those inferences require assessment of credibility and that respondents cannot therefore be held liable absent a de novo [new] hearing at which the administrative law judge can make credibility determinations and propose a decision to the commission that reflects those determinations,” Ward wrote in his dissenting statement.
Dyer, the D.C. gay activist and former director of the Mayor’s office of GLBT Affairs, and Jaifa did not submit a statement explaining why they voted to approve Harris’s proposed decision.
Richard Salzman, the attorney representing Kemp and Houston, called the commission’s decision “fair and measured,” noting that it did not agree to all of the Kemp and Houston’s specific requests for damages. He noted that the commission denied Kemp’s request that the co-op pay him the amount of equity he would have accrued as the value of the two apartments he attempted to buy rose significantly in the 15 years since the co-op denied his application to buy the apartments.
“The evidence was overwhelming that the discrimination took place,” Salzman said. “It is clear to anyone who looks at the evidence presented.”
Under D.C. law, the D.C. Solicitor General, who is part of the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, is responsible for defending the Commission on Human Rights decision in the appeals court phase of the case.
A spokesperson for the Solicitor General said the office is scheduled to file its response to 2101 Connecticut Ave. Co-op’s appeal brief on Feb. 11.
In its April 23 decision, the D.C. Commission on Human Rights ordered the co-op to “cease and desist” from engaging in further discrimination against people who apply to buy an apartment in the building and who are covered under the D.C. Human Rights Act.
The decision also calls on the co-op building to pay Kemp $90,000 for the amount he paid ($515,000) for an apartment he bought in another building in excess of what he would have paid ($415,000) for one of the apartments he was prevented from buying in the co-op building.
In addition, the decision orders the co-op to pay Kemp $35,000 for “humiliation, embarrassment and indignity” he suffered due to the co-op’s discriminatory action against him. It calls for the co-op to award Houston $17,500 in damages for also suffering “humiliation, embarrassment and indignity.”
The co-op is also required to pay for Kemp and Houston’s attorney’s fees and to reimburse the city $6,458 in court reporting and transcription costs related to the case.
Why did this case take so long to go from the complaint to a decision by the commission?
David Simmons, chief administrative law judge for the Commission on Human Rights, told the Blade on Wednesday that one of the reasons Kemp and Houston’s discrimination case took 15 years to advance from the complaint to the commission’s decision last April was a lack of a sufficient number of hearing examiners and support staff for the commission.
He said more hearing examiners and support staff have been hired in recent years, but during the years that Alexander served as chief administrative law judge, the staffing was a “travesty,” he said. According to Simmons, at the time Alexander presided over the Kemp-Houston case, he was the only hearing examiner the commission had, forcing him to preside over all of the cases.
“I knew Cornelius Alexander, and he was hard-working and an excellent attorney,” he said. “In my view, the city killed him. They worked him to death.”
District of Columbia
D.C. gay bar Uproar issues GoFundMe appeal
Message says business struggling to pay rent, utilities
The D.C. gay bar Uproar located in the city’s Shaw neighborhood at 639 Florida Ave., N.W., has issued a GoFundMe appeal seeking financial support as it struggles to pay rent and utilities.
The GoFundMe appeal, which was posted by Uproar’s owner Tammy Truong, says its goal is to raise $100,000. As of Dec. 10, the posting says $4,995 had been raised.
“For over nine years Uproar has been an integral part of the D.C. LGBTQIA+ community,” the GoFundMe message says. “It has been a place of refuge for many people and has been a space where people have been allowed to express themselves freely.”
The message adds, “We have recently faced unexpected challenges and are asking for help from the community that we’ve given so much to. We want to be able to continue to pay and support our staff and our community. All donations will be used to pay for these unexpected costs and will be used to improve the space for staff and patrons.”
On its website, Uproar provides further details of the unexpected costs it says it is now faced with.
“Due to significant increases in insurance costs for 2025, we’ve had to deplete our reserves from our summer sales,” the website message says. “As a result, we are now struggling to cover rent and utility costs through the winter.”
The message adds, “Our top priority is to ensure that our amazing staff, who are the heart and soul of Uproar, are fully supported. We are committed to keeping them fully employed and scheduled during this difficult time so they can continue to provide for themselves and their families.”
Uproar, which caters to a clientele of the city’s leather and bear communities, has faced challenges in the past when the local D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission voted to oppose the routine renewal of its liquor license.
In November 2019, ANC 1B voted unanimously to oppose the license renewal of Uproar and 22 other liquor serving establishments in the U Street-Florida Avenue area on grounds that they have a negative impact on “peace, order, and quiet” in the surrounding neighborhoods. The city’s liquor board nevertheless approved the license renewals for Uproar and most of the other establishments.
Local nightlife advocates criticized the ANC’s action, saying it was based on an anti-business and anti-nightlife bias that requires bars such as Uproar to expend large sums of money on retaining lawyers to help them overcome the license opposition.
The Uproar GoFundMe page can be accessed here:
District of Columbia
Mayor, police chief highlight ‘significant’ drop in D.C. crime
Officials cite arrests in two LGBTQ-related cases
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser joined District Police Chief Pamela Smith and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah in crediting a series of stepped-up crime fighting and crime reduction programs put in place over the past year with bringing about a 35 percent reduction in violent crime in the city over the past year.
Bowser, Smith, and Appiah highlighted what they called a significant drop in overall crime in the nation’s capital at a Dec. 9 news conference held at the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department headquarters’ Joint Operations Command Center.
Among other things, the city officials presented slides on a large video screen showing that in addition to the 35 percent drop in overall violent crime during the past year, the number of carjackings dropped by 48 percent, homicides declined by 29 percent, robberies declined by 39 percent, and assaults with a dangerous weapon also dropped by 29 percent.
“I want to start by thanking MPD and I want to thank all of our public safety teams, local and federal, and the agencies that support their work,” Bowser said in noting that the improved crime data this year was due to a combined effort in adopting several new programs to fight crime.
Bowser also thanked D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) who introduced legislation backed by the mayor and approved by the Council in March of this year called the Secure D.C. bill, which includes a wide range of new crime fighting and crime prevention initiatives.
In response to a question from the Washington Blade, Chief Smith said she believes the stepped-up crime fighting efforts played some role in D.C. police making arrests in two recent cases involving D.C. gay men who were victims of a crime of violence.
In one of the cases, 22-year-old Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, a gay man, was attacked and beaten on Oct. 27 of this year by as many as 15 men and women at the D.C. McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Street, N.W., with some of them shouting anti-gay slurs. D.C. police, who listed the incident as a suspected hate crime, arrested a 16-year-old male in connection with the case on a charge of Assault with Significant Bodily Injury.
The other case involved a robbery and assault that same day of gay DJ and hairstylist Bryan Smith, 41, who died 11 days later on Nov. 7 from head injuries that police have yet to link to the robbery. Police have since arrested two teenage boys, ages 14 and 16, who have been charged with robbery.
Smith said the police department’s Special Liaison Branch, which includes the LGBT Liaison Unit, will continue to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community.
“And so, I think that what we will do is what we have been doing, which is really making sure that the reports are coming in or the incident reports are coming in and we’re ensuring that the Special Liaison Branch is getting out to the communities to ensure that those types of hate crimes are not increasing across our city,” she said.
Smith added, “We will continue to work with the community, work with our members, our LGBTQ, our other groups and organizations to ensure that we are getting the right information out and making sure that people, when they see something, they say something to share that information with us.”
Data posted on the D.C. police website show from Jan. 1-Oct. 31, 2024, a total of 132 hate crimes were reported in the District. Among those, 22 were based on the victim’s sexual orientation, and 18 were based on the victim’s gender identity or expression.
During that same period, 47 hate crimes based on the victim’s ethnicity or national origin were reported, 33 were reported based on the victim’s race, and six were based on the victim’s religion.
The data show that for the same period in 2023, 36 sexual orientation related hate crimes were reported, and 13 gender identity or expression cases were reported.
District of Columbia
Dupont’s Soho Coffee and Tea closes
Neighborhood institution holds fond memories for many older gay residents
Beloved Dupont Circle Soho Coffee and Tea has closed unexpectedly.
During the early evening of Nov. 25, Soho Coffee and Tea employees began taking down artwork and menus of the establishment. Within 12 hours, everything from the rolling counters to the patio furniture had disappeared. Today, only the yellow walls remain.
On May 30, 2018, Eduard Badalyan received his new business license: Group Soho and closed on the sale of Soho Tea and Coffee at 2150 P St., N.W., in Dupont Circle. Eduard’s sister Liana Badalyan became the manager. Conveniently, they lived in the neighborhood.
Eduard Badalyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia and earned his master’s in Public Administration. Liana had experience in the service industry. She was front office manager for the Remington Hotel Marriot in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, Calif.
So the stage was set for a great neighborhood coffee and tea shop.
Owner Edward and manager Liana transformed it into a clean and organized establishment. But business gradually fell off and the rent continued to rise so Edward closed Soho unexpectedly.
For many older gay residents, the closing brought back fond memories when Soho Coffee and Tea was the gay hub of West Dupont Circle. At that time, 22nd and P Streets, N.W., aka West Dupont Circle, was D.C.’s gayborhood. Across the street from Soho was a section of Rock Creek Park known as P Street Beach, a large grassy area perfect for sunbathing. For many years starting in 1972, this was home for the unofficial Gay Pride celebration. In fact, for many years the Gay Pride Parade kicked off at 22nd and P streets.
Adjacent to the so-called P Street Beach was the Black Forest, a popular cruising area occasionally raided by the National Park Police. They chopped down many bushes and trees so their cruisers could drive directly onto P Street Beach.
Entrepreneurs and lesbians Helene Bloom and Fran Levine opened Soho in 1994. At that time, this was the center of many gay bars including the dance bar Badlands (1984-2002 which then became Apex) on 22nd Street; Fraternity House, which became Omega, was located down the Twining Alley (closed 2013); Friends Piano Bar on P Street then became gay Latino bar Escandalo; and finally Deco Cabana, as well as P Street Station (rebranded as The Fireplace) and Mr. P’s. Each night when the bars closed, the patrons would flood to Soho for eggs, bacon, and coffee.
Helene and Fran had envisioned a New York City-style eclectic restaurant hangout. It became a spot for book clubs, art shows, political meetings and wine parties.
Longtime Dupont Circle residents and Soho customers Gordon Binder and Michael Rawson lamented the loss of Soho.
“Soho was around the corner from where we live, we’ve been going to Soho several times a week since it opened in the ‘90s, 30 years enjoying the atmosphere, the patrons, the friendly albeit ever changing staff, the chicken salad sandwich, and so much more,” Binder said. “Sad news indeed. We will surely miss this neighborhood hangout.”
State Department honors Ghanaian LGBTQ activist
D.C. gay bar Uproar issues GoFundMe appeal
Heritage Foundation praises effort to ban transgender healthcare for military families
Mayor, police chief highlight ‘significant’ drop in D.C. crime
Activists: Ghanaian presidential election results will not improve LGBTQ rights
Rehoboth Beach’s iconic Purple Parrot is sold
Navigating the holidays while estranged from ultra-religious, abusive parents
Mother wages fight for trans daughter in new book
Jolie delivers diva perfection as ‘Maria’
