For many, the bars-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see on 18th Street in Adams Morgan is exactly what has made the neighborhood the center of the District’s nightlife. For others, it’s the very reason the neighborhood has started going downhill.

According to the Post, the D.C. Council will vote tomorrow on whether to limit the number of taverns on the strip, potentially imposing restrictions that could force owners to close shop. Longtime area residents have complained that more and more of the strip’s alcohol-selling restaurants have become taverns, a classification that frees them from regulations mandating that 45 percent of annual revenue come from the sale of food. By making the switch, residents contend, the diversity of the area’s thriving restaurants has given way to generic bars and pubs that focus more on cheap booze than they do on community — thus contributing to the violence and crime that regularly comes along with weekend nights.

On the other side of the debate are the restaurant-owners, who argue that the District’s regulations regarding food sales are too restrictive — so restrictive, in fact, that they have been forced to classify their restaurants as taverns to escape them. In their mind, city officials should focus on re-writing the regulations instead of limiting the number of taverns that can exist in any one area.

Photo by digitaldefection