June 29, 2007
Another Shooting, Another Jim Graham Crusade
An unidentified man was shot around 2:40 a.m. last night inside Joe's Restaurant on 9th Street NW, right next to popular local bar and music venue DC9. The man later died at an area hospital. And of course, only hours after that, D.C. Council member Jim Graham is calling for the restaurant's permanent closure. This is becoming a familiar pattern.
Graham says the restaurant is "notorious and dangerous," dating back to shooting and violence that have occurred at that location in the past. Graham says two men were wounded at the restaurant in March when it operated under a different name.
Graham is renewing his calls to have the restaurant permanently closed under the nuisance provisions of the District's drug laws.
Joe's restaurant is a greasy spoon that serves tasty and cheap diner fare. Despite the promise of being open "24 hours" on the door, in reality its hours are somewhat capricious and it tends only to be open late at night and on weekends. It is somewhat perplexing to wonder exactly what about Joe's delicious steak and eggs is contributing to violence that's unfortunately happening between its customers. You can almost understand the thinking behind the temporary H2O shutdown better than this one, since it at least involves an establishment that serves alcohol.
Police are still investigating the murder, and are checking surveillance video from a camera near the intersection of 9th and T.
Photo by Ian Buckwalter
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The H2O closing was in part because they were serving alcohol after hours. Makes perfect sense. This closing makes considerbly less sense.
If I stab someone at Steak and Egg will they close that place down too? Because that's probably to everyone's benefit. Except for the dude I stab.
Maybe Jim Graham just wants to kick out ghetto people.
In which case, he should just move to Virginia
-the economics major
I think Jim Graham does want to kick out ghetto people... which is why he'll always have my vote.
- JM
the thing is, eventually, someone is going to get stabbed/shot/injured in a fight at (or just outside of) ben's or bohemian caverns....one of the icons of the neighborhood.
(actually, someone was shot on U in front of ben's over a year ago....an attorney from virginia who was the unfortunate victim of an argument over a parking space, just to point out the ridiculousness.)
my point is, will mr. graham ask for the immediate shut down of ben's, as it "draws a bad crowd", or something like that. i appreciate his law and order bent, but sometimes it seems he's *this close* from becoming a caricature of himself. there are degrees of nuance in everything, and it seems more and more like all these issues are being swept up into a one-size-fits-all bucket of enforcement, instead of working on each incident individually.
Too bad. Joe's is just what the doctor ordered after a long night drinking. Joe's a very nice guy too.
This is somewhat tangential, but it's related to weird DC treatment of bars/restaurants. WTF is up with all those huge red-orange signs in the windows of restaurants? The ones saying the place's liquor license is up for renewal, etc.? It seems like they're EVERYWHERE - I've only lived in DC since last fall, but I now see these guys all over the place. Is it an annual requirement that they need to post these huge signs up so neighbors can complain about the restaurants' liquor licenses or something?
I've never seen anything like these signs before - they look horrible, and at first I thought all of these places had had their liquor licenses revoked. Can anyone explain to me what this is all about? Thanks.
If it's related to what I've been seeing in the Dupont Current newspaper, a lot of local places are trying to switch to a tavern license because of the less stringent requirements for X percentage of sales must come from food and stuff like that. I don't know if that explains all of them, but it's a fairly sizeable number. Not sure, but I'd have to go back and read the articles.
I think Graham (and DCist) confuses the issue by mentioning alcohol (or lack thereof) at Joe's. Graham's main point was that there was a prior incident there earlier this year, so this is a pattern at this particular establishment. I'm not going to judge whether that's an effective argument or not, but comparatively that's a much more coherent argument that the H2O issue which was completely unwarranted.
If someone was shot in front of Jim Graham's house, would he be forced to board up his house and move?
The only bad element that Ben's attracts is the one that turns my gastro-intestinal system into a bubbling cauldron of stank.
guest [10]: you crossed the line on a Friday morning. I can smell your gaseous emanations already; couldn't you have waited until after I got my drink on? (diclaimer: I use that phrase with youthful irony)
- the english major
Jim Graham is out of control. We won't be able to stop him until he shoots someone and shuts himself down.
i go to joes a lot on weekends, its great.
first warehouse, then sparkys, then joes.
eliminate another cheap eatery option in DC?
WTF?! someone got stabbed at rite aid and at 7 eleven on U st. but they're still open.
The shooting was likely due to a lack of Heinz 57 at the premises.
Sparky's, as in the crappy espresso place on 14th? It's closed?
This whole argument is ill-posed. He's not closing down any establishment that has had a shooting outside of it. He's targeting businesses that have a demonstrable record of violence, police activity, etc. If your local 7-11 has multiple police calls and the owners don't make an effort to keep arguments from escalating on the property, then yes, I think you can expect it to be closed down. If it's a generally peaceful place then he shouldn't be going after it.
So the question is... what sort of clientele does Joe's attract, and does it in fact have a record of violence?
If Joe's goes vegetarian, would that mellow patrons out? Nah, they would probably be angrier.
My thoughts go out to the victim. On a related note, has anyone heard whether Fenty will appeal the court decision striking down DC's gun laws? I'd think the 100-day appeal window would be closing soon.
I'd like to know whether Graham is just knee-jerking to his constituency's phonecalls, or whether his automatic reaction is to shutter clubs, bars, and restaurants. Has there really been a history of violence at Joes? Or is it just that a 4am DC crowd is just looking for trouble, and Joes happens to be open? Either way, it doesn't bode well for having a "vibrant" 24-hour-a-day lifestyle in DC. Just another reason to go gut-blowout at Steak & Egg or the two Tastee Diners.
The red placards (their official names) are for license renewals. All restaurants w/ ABC licenses are currently renewing right now for another three-year period. If is a District law that these be put up in order to notify the public of an impending renewal in case they would like to protest the license. The red placards that are up everywhere have nothing to do with a conversion to tavern licenses (which seems to be an Adams Morgan phenom right now since no other change request has been filed anywhere in the city.
As for Mr. Graham whatever makes him look good in the media is the side he will take and for some reason he seems to think calling for the shut down of every other place makes him look good. One only wishes he would send out the same loud-mouthed emails next time there is a fight/stabbing/shooting in line at one of the big slice places in Adams Morgan, which consistently cause more problems with people waiting in line than Steak & Egg ever did.
Once Jim Graham bans every restaurant, bar and cigarette in DC nothing bad will ever happen again. Huzzah!
In that photo, Graham looks a little like the mascot from Bob's Big Boy.
Hmm, I wonder why Grahm didn't handle the stabbings at Chaos with such similar fervor?
Because gunshots are a lot scarier than knife wounds. Graham represents a lot of people who lived in his ward back when bullets flying through the front windows at night was not an uncommon event. But not many people have ever had to dodge a stray knife.
At this rate, Jim Graham will end up making the whole council a national joke...oh, wait...