Photo by Kyle Walton.

Imagine: as your feet pound the pavement on an unbearably hot afternoon, you suddenly get a blast of fresh air. Whether it’s from a garage, a store looking to attract new customers or that one metal grate over the Dupont Circle Metro station that always blasts out cold air (my personal favorite), there’s nothing quite as thrilling as that first frigid taste of recirculated air on your skin, right? Our sister site Gothamist even went so far as to describe the feeling as “like enjoying a free hit of crack, basically.” While I can’t attest to the validity of that analogy, I’ll concur that it is pretty damn fantastic.

That said, there have been a lot of people who have been without power for days of late, and so running the air conditioning with a door wide open seems, oh, I don’t know, a little bit wasteful.

Getting to the point: I’ve gotten at least three separate emails this morning asking me to check out a letter to the editor that the Washington Post reprinted this morning about this very issue. One Nicko Margolies writes:

With the sweltering summer heat upon the city, I find myself stunned by the policies of many area retail stores to keep the air conditioning on full blast and the front doors wide-open. It is an extraordinarily wasteful act that strains the city’s electrical grid and is terrible for the environment. Pepco recently sent a message through the D.C. government’s alert system asking residents to refrain from using power-heavy appliances during peak hours, but there is no rebuke for businesses that blow cold air directly into the street. The D.C. Council should pass legislation to punish stores because this profligate practice must go — a smart move that New York City made two years ago.

While complaining incessantly about the most menial of daily annoyances is every Washingtonian’s god-given right, this gripe seems to have a tiny bit more oomph behind it. Gothamist (really, not crack addicts, I swear) has the details on the New York law that Margolies references, which fines New York businesses $200 for “per open door/window in air conditioned spaces (as well as heated spaces in the winter)” if they’re caught in the act. And while keeping an open door might be a very good thing for small and local businesses to attract customers and maintain a sense of community, it does come off as kind of unnecessary in light of Pepco’s pleas for energy conservation. (After all, if your neighbors have melted, they probably won’t be doing much shopping.)

So — should the District government look into levying fines on businesses which use their A/C to lure in potential customers, or at least imposing penalties during times when Pepco states their need for a reduction in consumption? Tell us what you think in the comments.