Photo by NCinDC

Bars, restaurants, clubs, and taverns tend to be pioneers when it comes to improving a neighborhood — throughout the District, it’s often bar-owners that have aggressively moved into areas ahead of the broader rush. But when are there too many bars for a neighborhood’s own good? That’s what residents along the blossoming H Street NE will soon be debating.

According to The Hill is Home, this fall a Capitol Hill ANC will hold three meetings to consider imposing a cap on the number of liquor licenses granted to establishments along the commercial corridor. As of January 2011, there were 17 new bars and restaurants along a 13-block stretch of H Street NE.

H Street certainly won’t be the first area in D.C. that’s seen explosive growth in bars and restaurants, and it won’t be the only one that has grappled with how and when to rein in that growth. Last December, residents of nearby Barracks Row similarly debated a moratorium on liquor licenses, but voted down the idea in March. Dupont Circle has had a ban for the last 17 years; Georgetown’s had one for more than 20, but it was lifted in 2010. Adams Morgan also has one, Glover Park’s was granted in 1996 up for renewal in April 2012 and 17th Street has debated imposing its own.

On top of caps, bans and moratoriums on liquor licenses, there are also a number of parts of town that ban the sale of single beers, including all of wards 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8. (Exceptions can be granted in wards 2 and 6.)

As the debate on H Street NE moves forward, residents will surely have to balance the good that the bars have brought and what they want for the corridor moving forward. (The common refrain is that no one wants to be the next Adams Morgan.) Of course, there are those that debate whether there are better alternatives to simple caps and bans.