Local
Gay man seeks Dupont ANC seat Wednesday
Dito Sevilla, Abigail Nichols disagree over nightlife issues
A little-noticed race for a vacant ANC seat in Dupont Circle will be held Wednesday. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Gay restaurant manager Eduardo “Dito” Sevilla and civic activist Abigail Nichols have expressed differing views on the city’s liquor licensing policies and nightlife issues in a little-noticed race for a vacant seat on the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission.
The new commissioner for the ANC’s Single Member District 2B05, which covers most of the 17th Street, N.W., commercial and residential strip near Dupont Circle, will be chosen in a special election Wednesday, March 13, between 7:15 and 9:30 p.m. during the ANC’s regularly scheduled meeting at the Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
District 2B05 stretches from Q Street, N.W., between 15th and 17th streets on its northern boundary along part of 18th Street at Massachusetts Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue, almost to the White House gate, as ANC observers like to point out.
Sevilla has worked since 2004 as restaurant and bar manager at Floriana’s, a popular restaurant on the 1600 block of 17th Street, N.W. in the heart of the 17th Street commercial strip. Sevilla also lives on 17th Street one block from where he works.
Nichols has lived a few blocks away on 18th Street near Connecticut Avenue for 33 years, according to information posted on her website. She has worked for 20 years as a policy analyst and manager at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
She serves as treasurer of the D.C. Chapter of the League of Women Voters and is co-founder of the Alcohol Sanity Coalition D.C., a recently formed group that, according to its website, favors stricter city regulations over bars, restaurants and nightclubs. She has also served as chair of an ANC 2B committee that monitors liquor licensing issues.
In an interview published by the Dupont Circle news and civic blog Borderstan, Nichols said she didn’t have a position on one of the most contentious issues facing the Dupont Circle ANC — whether a longstanding city-enforced moratorium preventing new businesses with liquor licenses from opening along the 17th Street strip should be continued or allowed to expire.
She said she would study the issue and talk to residents before making a decision on the matter when it comes up before the ANC later this year.
Sevilla, when asked about liquor moratoriums by Borderstan, said he doesn’t discuss moratoriums. He told the Blade on Saturday that he personally favors allowing the 17th Street moratorium to expire. But he said he would recuse himself from voting on the issue if he’s elected to the ANC because his job at Floriana’s, which has a liquor license, would be viewed as a conflict of interest.
Ironically, Sevilla said, a continuation of the moratorium would be advantageous to Floriana’s and all other existing bars and restaurants on 17th Street — including three gay bars and a gay restaurant — because it prevents competitors from opening. However, as a resident and concerned citizen of the neighborhood, he said ending the moratorium would improve the area by allowing responsible and “resident-friendly” restaurants and cafes to open in several spaces along the street that have been vacant for a long time.
“I think a little café or a bakery that served beer wouldn’t be the worst thing on earth,” he said. “It would be better than the vacant spaces that have been left there.”
The moratorium is scheduled to expire later this year unless the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) renews it. Under city law, ABRA makes the final decision but is required to give “great weight” to the views of ANCs.
Nightlife advocates, both gay and straight, have expressed concern over Nichols’ positions on liquor licensing issues as the lead spokesperson for her group Alcohol Sanity Coalition D.C. The group opposed a number of provisions in a City Council bill last year seeking to reform the city’s liquor law.
One of the provisions Nichols opposed called for disqualifying ad hoc groups of as few as five citizens from having legal standing to challenge a liquor license application or renewal of an existing license if the applicant and the ANC reach an agreement and the ANC approves the application.
D.C. Council observers say support for the provision in the liquor bill to restrict the powers of small, ad-hoc groups to block liquor licenses emerged from a bitter fight over a proposal by Hank’s Oyster Bar, a popular seafood restaurant at 17th and Q Streets, N.W., to expand its outdoor patio.
An ad hoc group blocked the proposal for several years, even though nearly all nearby residents and the 17th Street community as a whole supported the patio expansion, according to residents familiar with the dispute. In December, over the objections of Alcohol Sanity Coalition D.C., the Council voted to retain the provision restricting the authority of ad-hoc groups to challenge licenses. The Council passed the bill itself by a unanimous vote.
Sevilla said Nichols, who lives in a condo building just off Connecticut Avenue next to a bustling commercial area where nightclubs and bars are located, appears ready to support overly restrictive regulations on all businesses with a liquor license on the entire ANC district.
“We don’t have the issues on 17th Street that she has where she lives,” Sevilla said. “I absolutely believe in my heart of hearts that [the moratorium] should be discontinued. I think some people like to jump on a bandwagon that lifting the moratorium would immediately turn us into Adams Morgan,” he said.
“I think that is a little bit alarmist and ridiculous,” said Sevilla. “Seventeenth Street is not 18th Street [in Adams Morgan]. We don’t have that many commercial spaces…It’s just two or three new spaces that could take hold.”
Nichols disputed claims that she would impose excessive restrictions on bars and restaurants located in ANC 2B.
She told the Blade on Monday that the Hank’s Oyster Bar case was not a representative example of how groups of five citizens handle ABC license challenges. She said she has organized groups of five residents in her apartment building that negotiated agreements with at least seven bars or nightclubs after the groups of five filed a protest, or challenge, to the club’s liquor license application.
“We say up front that we do not want to stop them from opening,” Nichols said. “Our objective is to work out a common sense agreement to cut down the noise.” In several cases, she said, the agreements called for the clubs, whose main entrances are on Connecticut Avenue, to close their rear entrances on 18th Street at 10:30 p.m. Her apartment building, the Palladium at 1325 18th Street, is close to the clubs’ rear entrances and subjected to noise by patrons entering or leaving the clubs, she said.
“We don’t blame the owners, who usually run good businesses, she said. “But you can’t avoid noise from liquor serving establishments, and that’s why you need these agreements.”
“Voters should ask both of us about the positions we already hold and whether we have any conflicts of interest that might affect our ANC service,” she told Borderstan. “How would we handle such conflicts?”
The ANC 2B05 seat became vacant when incumbent Victor Wexler, who was running for re-election last year unopposed, dropped out of the race in October due to a back ailment. It was too late to remove his name from the ballot in the November election.
Nichols announced her candidacy as a write-in candidate for the seat, but it was uncertain whether most voters were aware that Wexler had dropped out of the race. He received 530 votes; 112 votes were cast for a write-in candidate, which was presumed to have been Nichols.
District of Columbia
Deon Jones speaks about D.C. Department of Corrections bias lawsuit settlement
Gay former corrections officer says harassment, discrimination began in 1993
Deon Jones says he is pleased with the outcome of his anti-gay bias lawsuit against the D.C. Department of Corrections that ended after five years on Feb. 5 with the D.C. government paying him $500,000 in a settlement payment.
The lawsuit, filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. and the law international law firm WilmerHale, charged that Jones, a Department of Corrections sergeant, had been subjected to years of discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man in clear violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.
A statement released by the ACLU at the time the settlement was announced says Jones, “faced years of verbal abuse and harassment, from co-workers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment.”
The statement adds, “The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, post-traumatic-stress disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone.:
Jones said the harassment and mistreatment he encountered began in 1993, one year after he first began work at the Department of Corrections and continued for more than 25 years under six D.C. mayors, including current Mayor Muriel Bowser, who he says did not respond to his repeated pleas for help.
Each of those mayors, including Bowser, have been outspoken supporters of the LGBTQ community, but Jones says they did not intervene to change what he calls the homophobic “culture” at the Department of Corrections.
The Department of Corrections, through the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents city agencies against lawsuits, and the mayor’s office, have so far declined to comment on the lawsuit and the half million-dollar settlement the city offered to Jones, who accepted it.
Among other things, the settlement agreement states that Jones would be required to resign from his job at the Department of Corrections. It also declares that “neither the parties’ agreement nor the District government’s offer to settle the case shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to plaintiff or any other person, or that plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this. He said the city’s action to pay Jones a half million-dollar settlement “speaks louder than words.”
With that as a backdrop, Jones reflected on the settlement and what he says was his tumultuous 30-year career as an employee at the D.C. Department of Corrections in a Feb. 9 interview with the Washington Blade.
He and Michelman pointed out that Jones was placed on paid administrative leave in April 2022, one year after his lawsuit was filed. Among his upcoming plans, Jones told the Blade, is to publish a podcast that, among other things, will highlight the hardship he faced at the Department of Corrections and advocate for LGBTQ rights.
BLADE: What are your thoughts on this lawsuit settlement which appears very much in your favor?
JONES: That’s great. I’m happy. I’m glad to resign. It’s been a long time coming. It was the worst time it’s ever been. And I have advocated for the community for many, many years. And not only standing up for my rights but for the rights for others in the LGBTQ community.
And I’m just tired now. And my podcast will start soon. And I will continue to advocate for the community.
BLADE: Can you tell a little about that and when it will begin?
JONES: Once in April, once everything is closed my podcast will be starting. And that’s Deon’s Chronicle and Reveal. Yes, my own podcast.
BLADE: Since we have reported your attorney saying you have been on administrative leave since March of 2022, some in the community might be interested in what you have been doing since that time. Did you get another job or were you just waiting for this case to be resolved?
JONES: I was waiting for this to be resolved. I couldn’t work. That would violate policy and procedures of the D.C. government. So, I could not get another job or anything else.
BLADE: You have said under administrative leave you were still getting paid. You were still able to live off of that?
JONES: Yes, I was able to. Yes, sir. I used to do a lot of overtime. As a zone lieutenant for many years, I have supervised over 250 officers. I’ve also supervised over 25,000 inmates in my 30 years.
BLADE: How many years have you been working for the Department of Corrections?
JONES: It’s 30 years all together. I started down at the Lorton facility. Six facilities — I’ve worked for past directors, deputy directors, internal affairs. I’ve done it all.
BLADE: Do you have any plans now other than doing the podcast?
JONES: Well, to just do my podcast and also to write my book and my memoir inside of the house of pain, the house of shame — what I’ve been through. When I start my podcast off it will be stories — Part 1 through Part 4. And I will go back to the Lorton days all the way up to now. When it first started was sexual harassment and discrimination back down at Lorton. And I mean this has just been the worst time around.
BLADE: So, did you first start your work at the Lorton Prison?
JONES: Yes, I was at the central facility, which was the program institution.
MICHELMAN: Just for context. You may remember this, but the Lorton facility was where D.C. incarcerated people were held. So, that was part of the D.C. Department of Corrections.
BLADE: Yes, and that was located in Lorton, Va., is that right?
JONES: Right.
BLADE: Didn’t that close and is the main incarceration facility is now in D.C. itself?
JONES: Yes. And that closed in 2001.
BLADE: I see. And is the main D.C. jail now at a site near the RFK Stadium site?
JONES: Yes, sir. And next-door is the correctional treatment facility as well.
BLADE: So, are you saying the harassment and other mistreatment against you began back when you were working at the Lorton facility?
JONES: At the Lorton central facility. And they used to flash me too. When I say flash me like the residents, the inmates were flashing. And they [the employees] were flashing.
BLADE: What do you mean by flashing?
JONES: They take their penis out and everything else. I mean the sexual harassment was terrible. And I came out then down there. And I continued to advocate for myself and to advocate for other people who I was told were being picked on as well.
BLADE: As best you can recall, where and what year did that happen?
JONES: That was back in 1993 in April of 1993.
BLADE: The mayor’s office has declined to comment on the settlement and payment the city is giving you. Yet they have always said they have a strong policy of nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in D.C. government agencies. But do you think that was not carried out at the Department of Corrections?
JONES: That’s a blatant reason why — I had 13 anxiety attacks. It was so blatant. Can you imagine? On the airwaves or the walkie-talkies — everybody had a walkie talkie — the captains and the majors and everything. And you transmit it to the command center or something like that. When you finish someone gets on the air and calls you a sissy or a fag.
They received so many complaints, and I also sent the mayor so many emails and begging for help. And they ignored it. They didn’t address any complaints at all. So, that’s bull.
BLADE: But now after you filed your lawsuit and you received this settlement do you think there will be changes there to protect the rights of other LGBTQ employees?
JONES: I hope so, because I have been defending community rights. For many years I have been advocating for different things and different services. And I’ve seen the treatment. There are a lot of mistreatments towards the community over there. And I have taken a stance for a lot of people in the community and protecting their constitutional rights as well as mine.
BLADE: What advice might you have for what the Department of Corrections should do to correct the situation that led to your lawsuit?
JONES: Well, what my advice for the department is they need to go back over their training. And they need to enforce rules against any acts of discrimination, retaliation, or sexual harassment. They need to enforce that. They’re not enforcing that at all. They’re not doing it at all. And this time it was worse than ever, then I’ve ever seen it. That you would get on the walkie talkie and someone would call you a fag or a sissy or whatever else or do evil things and everything. They are not enforcing what they are preaching. They are not enforcing that.
BLADE: Is there any kind of concluding comment you may want to make?
JONES: Well, I hope that this litigation will be a wakeup call for the department. And also, that it will give someone else the motivation to stand up for their rights. I was blessed to have the ACLU and WilmerHale to protect my constitutional rights. So, I am just really happy. So, I’m hoping that others will stand up for their rights. Because a lot of people in the community that worked there, they were actually afraid. And I had some people who actually quit because of the pressure.
Baltimore
‘Heated Rivalry’ fandom exposes LGBTQ divide in Baltimore
Hit show raises questions about identity, cultural representation
By JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV | “Heated Rivalry,” the surprise gay hockey romance that has captivated global audiences and become a cultural phenomenon, has inspired sold-out parties celebrating the characters from the steamy series, including in Baltimore.
For some, love of the show has exposed the loss of a once-vibrant gay nightlife in Charm City and splintered its LGBTQ community. It also brings up layered questions about identity, cultural representation, and the limits of identity politics.
In Baltimore, the majority of the parties also appear to be missing a key ingredient that has been a part of the show’s success: gay men at the helm. Last month, women hosted a dance party at Ottobar, a straight establishment.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Virginia
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria City Council member becomes 8th LGBTQ member of legislature
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the decisive winner in a Feb. 10 special election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, a Democrat, received 81.5 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Mason Butler, according to the local publication ALX Now.
He first won election to the Alexandria Council in 2021. He will be filling the House of Delegates seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria), who won in another Feb. 10 special election for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria).
Ebbin is resigning from his Senate next week to take a position with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration.
Upon taking his 5th District seat in the House of Delegate, McPike will become the eighth out LGBTQ member of the Virginia General Assembly. Among those he will be joining is Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who became the Virginia Legislature’s first transgender member when she won election to the House of Delegates in 2017 before being elected to the Senate in 2023.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” McPike said in a statement after winning the Democratic nomination for the seat in a special primary held on Jan. 20.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, has served for the past 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He said he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
European Parliament resolution backs ‘full recognition of trans women as women’
Deon Jones speaks about D.C. Department of Corrections bias lawsuit settlement
Home is where the heart is
‘Heated Rivalry’ fandom exposes LGBTQ divide in Baltimore
Magic is happening for Round House’s out stage manager
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Top Democrats re-introduce trans bill of rights
Shooter who killed 7 people inside Canada school was transgender
Just when you think Trump can’t sink any lower, he does
