Local
Drinkery re-opens after liquor board reversal
‘A great day for Mount Vernon’
Baltimore’s Drinkery has re-opened. (Photo by Steve Charing)
Just two weeks after the Baltimore City Board of Liquor License Commissioners voted 2-1 to close The Drinkery, a gay bar in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, the decision was reversed on June 2.
Those protesting the license renewal at the hearing on May 19 complained about alleged rowdiness, excessive noise, drug activity and violence in and around the establishment, which has operated for 44 years. This was presented through a signed petition; letters sent to the board by residents, nearby businesses and local politicians; and testimony at the hearing.
Commissioners Dana Peterson Moore and Albert J. Matricciani had voted not to renew The Drinkery’s liquor license; Aaron Greenfield voted for renewal.
In declaring her vote then, Moore stated, “What matters are the facts” and cited “contempt by the owner toward the community.”
However, it was Moore who reversed her decision on June 2 following a motion for reconsideration by The Drinkery’s 87-year-old owner Frederick Allen.
According to the Baltimore Sun, “Allen’s motion noted that Jason Curtis, who signed a petition and testified against the Drinkery in the May 19 hearing, is listed on the liquor license of another Mount Vernon establishment, Hotel Indigo. The board’s rules specify that a protest against a license renewal can be signed by “residents, commercial tenants (who are not holders or applicants for a liquor license), or real estate owners in the immediate vicinity of the licensed place of business.”
The Sun stated that Curtis’ failure to disclose his liquor license was sufficient to change the board’s mind. Curtis, who was the former president of the Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association that led the effort to prevent The Drinkery’s license renewal and in 2012 ran unsuccessfully to be the first openly gay man to be elected to the City Council, did not respond to a request from the Blade for comment.
The Community Law Center, which represented the MVBA in its efforts against The Drinkery, could appeal the decision, according to the Sun.
News of the reversal was welcomed by many in Baltimore’s LGBT community. “This is a great day for an inclusive Mount Vernon, Mark McLaurin, a Baltimore resident and a frequent patron of The Drinkery, told the Blade. “Special thanks to Commissioners Moore and Greenfield for being willing to reconsider a hastily reached decision.”
Another customer, RJ Ladd, lamented the loss of gay bars in Baltimore. “I’m glad that the liquor board reconsidered the matter. Our gay bars are a dying breed. Let’s keep the remaining few around,” he said.
The Drinkery re-opened on Saturday at 11 a.m. to much relief and jubilance by its patrons.
However, there had been considerable disquiet and finger pointing following the initial vote to close the bar. Community members were angry that three gay men testified to close the longtime gay establishment.
“The gay men who organized the efforts to close The Drinkery created a lot discord and distrust in the community,” activist Brian Gaither told the Blade. “To get their way they exploited anti-gay prejudice in a way that undermines decades of work by activists in the city. The whole thing is shameful and appalling.”
In a statement dated June 6, the Mount Vernon Belvedere Association explained the rationale for their protest of the license renewal.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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