Photo by rockcreek.

New year, new hearings in the DC9/Ali Ahmed Mohammed saga: TBD’s Sommer Mathis and City Paper’s Rend Smith were back tweeting about a hearing in front of the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board regarding the club’s future this afternoon. According to both scribes, the Board voted to allow the club to rehire the five employees who were initially charged in the death of Ali Ahmed Mohammed in October. The club will, however, have to continue to maintain a security detail after midnight every night it is open, though that restriction will be revisited at another meeting in February.

Perhaps today’s most eye-opening developments involved DC9 owner Joe Englert and several individuals who showed up at the hearing — Mathis notes that while Englert stated that he’d “more than happy to dialogue” with members of the community, Mohammed supporters are planning a “teach-in” next week regarding the 27-year-old’s death. It’s hard to imagine that the return of any of the five — who could still be charged with a crime by the Office of the Attorney General, it should be noted — to the club might reopen some of the wounds that may have scabbed over with time.