BeBar Opens After Conflict With Church
Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher
BeBar, the newest gay bar in D.C., opened its doors to the public last week. Though there may be nothing remarkable about another gay bar in the city (especially for the heterosexual set), Be Bar’s story is part of a larger story of ongoing gentrification in the city and the conflict it’s creating in a number of neighborhoods.
For over six months, BeBar’s owners have faced vocal opposition from members of a church community in Shaw, where the bar is located. The struggle may represent the growing tension between new residents and entrepreneurs on one side, who see opportunity and progress in relocating and opening new businesses in revitalized neighborhoods, and longtime residents and community members on the other, who feel a powerful force pushing them out or leaving them behind. Then again, maybe its just a feud between a gay friendly business and a church whose pastor openly opposes homosexuality and worries that a gay bar will have a deleterious effect on the moral fiber of the community.
At the center of the story are BeBar owners Michael Watson and Tom McGuire and the pastor of Scripture Cathedral Baptist Church, Bishop C.L. Long, and his congregation. Watson and McGuire wanted to open a gay friendly bar. Long and his congregation saw the bar as a threat to the character of their neighborhood and fought its efforts to obtain a liquor license. It’s disputed whether the church and its allies opposed BeBar out of a desire to prevent the opening of any new bar in the neighborhood or, more nefariously, a desire to prevent the opening of a bar that welcomes everyone, but, with its candy-themed martinis and gay friendly atmosphere, caters to men looking for a possible love connection with other male patrons.
The rhetoric that BeBar’s opponents have used suggests that they are no friends to “Friends of Dorothy.” In discussing the possibility of a gay bar in Shaw, Long was quoted by the Washington Blade saying, "They are doing it simply because they feel that they can do it and that they can go anywhere. And we say no, you cannot go anywhere in this city." We'll leave it to readers to parse the subtle meaning of his comment.
In March, Long and members of his congregation called for the Shaw Advisory Neighborhood Commission, ANC 2C, to oppose BeBar’s application for a liquor license. During a March 8, 2006 meeting at which Watson and McGuire were not present, the ANC 2C voted 3 to 1 to file a protest with the D.C. Alcohol Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), the agency that issues liquor licenses. Subsequently, members of Scripture Cathedral and the D.C. Black Church Initiative, represented by Rev. Anthony Evans, filed letters of protest. In his letter, Evans stated that the gay bar would “undermine the moral character of the community.”
On August 16, 2006, the D.C. Alcohol Beverage Control Board (ABCB) rejected the protests and ruled in favor of BeBar (.pdf document). The board noted that ANC 2C failed to provide the owners of BeBar sufficient notice of the March 8, 2006 meeting. According to the ABCB, ANC 2C’s failure to provide notice denied the owners of BeBar the opportunity to address the concerns of neighborhood prior to the protest vote. The ABCB wouldn’t even consider ANC 2C’s protest because the process by which the protest was adopted was rigged against BeBar.
The board also noted that out of the eight individuals from Scripture Cathedral protesting the application, six did not actually live in the neighborhood, but rather lived over three miles away. Since the protestors did “not reside in the immediate neighborhood of the establishment,” the ABCB ruled that they did not have standing to protest the application. The ABCB rejected their protest because it recognized that the people most vocal about the threat posed to the character of the neighborhood did not even live in the neighborhood.
BeBar prevailed, but other Shaw businesses have been less fortunate. In the past year, Shaw eateries Vegetate and Queen Sheba faced strong opposition to their liquor license applications, largely from members of Shiloh Baptist Church. Like Scripture Cathedral, Shiloh is located in Shaw, but many of its congregants live outside the neighborhood and even outside the city. The ABCB has denied liquor licenses to both restaurants. With so many D.C. neighborhoods changing, it seems the ABCB, among others, is having a hard time figuring out just who these neighborhoods belong to.
So, was the donnybrook over BeBar’s liquor license worth the trouble? You can check it out for yourself. BeBar is located at 1318 9th St., NW, between N and O streets.
Picture of a shuttered BeBar before its opening snapped by sbma44