Photo by Samer Farha

If you want to buy yourself a single 22-ounce bottle of fine Belgian trappist ale in Mt. Pleasant, good luck—there’s none to be found. Now some residents want that to change.

An ANC in Mt. Pleasant recently passed a resolution asking that the neighborhood’s ban on the sale of single beers be amended to allow for single bottles and cans of high-end artisinal and craft beers. On Friday, members of the ANC are asking residents to visit Councilmember Jim Graham’s (D-Ward 1) office to push him into adding the exception to a package of liquor law reforms that he’s put before the D.C. Council.

The sale of single beers was banned by the D.C. Council in 2008 in Mt. Pleasant, Ward 2 and Ward 6. The thinking at the time was that single beers—primarily 24-ounce cans of low-priced brews and malt liquor—contributed to littering, public drunkenness and public urination. And while the ban was later extended to wards 4, 7 and 8, wards 2 and 6 were able to work an exception into the law for the types of high-end beers sold at the Whole Foods on P Street and Schneider’s of Capitol Hill.

Now some Mt. Pleasant residents want the same opportunity. “Mount Pleasant locals cannot patronize their local specialty wine shop when buying craft beer. This is inconvenient for residents, makes the neighborhood less walkable for goods that one should be able to purchase close to home, and hurts one of the neighborhood’s best business owners, Jesse Chong of Lee Irving Wine and Spirits, by making his shop less competitive with other nearby wine shops that are not affected by the moratorium, or that at least have an opportunity to seek an exception to the moratorium,” read an email form China Terrell, and ANC commissioner in the neighborhood.

Much like in ward 2 and 6, there’s a touch of classism implicit in the proposed exception: your local day laborer can’t buy himself a 24-ounce can of Budweiser, but the young professional certainly can get his bottle of Chimay. “[D]ue to shifting demographics in Mount Pleasant, there is now increased demand for specialty, craft beers,” adds Terrell’s email. She does note it’s unfair that Mt. Pleasant applies the ban without exception: “Mount Pleasant, known for being a primarily Latino community, is the only neighborhood in the District where the single-sales ban applies without exception. We can no longer sanction the uneven application of this law.”

That being said, it makes sense for Mt. Pleasant to seek the same exception that retailers in ward 2 and 6 can apply for. After all, if you can’t buy that single bottle of ale on Mt. Pleasant Street, you can simply walk two blocks to d’vines on 14th Street, which isn’t bound by any type of ban.

While neighborhood activists have lauded the single-beer sales ban, it’s a moving target. As we reported last year, retailers in wards affected by the ban have simply opted to sell two-packs of beer for not nearly twice the cost of what a single beer would cost. In response to that, activists in Capitol Hill have pushed to ban the sale of two- and three-packs.