Photo by Flickr user Andrew Bossi
After a lengthy hearing Friday in front of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, Mood Lounge, which had been ordered shut by city officials since December 30 when two people were stabbed outside its doors, got its liquor license back, allowing it to resume operations.
Mood Lounge’s license was suspended January 3 after investigations by the Metropolitan Police Department and the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. The lounge, which opened last January at 1318 9th Street NW, had been the subject of dozens of complaints from its neighbors in Shaw, ranging from excessive noise to sightings of its customers urinating on private property or committing acts of vandalism. Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2F had both called for the establishment to be closed permanently.
In a letter to the ABC board penned before the hearing, the members of ANC 2F wrote that since opening, Mood Lounge had “brought chaos and lawlessness to the area” and was in violation of its voluntary agreement with the commission.
We have received literally hundreds of complaints from dozens of residents. The most persistent of these are noise violations. Unacceptable and illegal levels of noise have been reported virtually every night Mood Lounge has operated.
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Physical altercations have been common and at times have escalated into all-out melees. Public drunkenness, urination and vomiting have been frequent, and in at least one instance, sexual intercourse reportedly occurred on the hood of a car.
One of the principal complaints from the lounge’s neighbors was over its hours. Though Mood Lounge is licensed to operate as a seven-day-a-week tavern, it is usually open only on Friday and Saturday night, only opening its doors on weeknights for special events, such as one on the Thursday evening that preceded the stabbing incident.
At the hearing, members of the ABC board heard from MPD officers, ABRA investigators and Mood Lounge employees. One of the nightspot’s key witnesses was Jeffrey Jackson, a former ABRA investigator who now consults bars and restaurants on liquor-license compliance. Jackson told the board he led a three-day training session for Mood employees about a week after the stabbing incident and recommended several new security procedures.
The official case against Mood Lounge was particularly unflattering. Among the details in the ABRA report were that the lounge’s security cameras were not recording any footage the night of the stabbings, and that a security guard, when being interviewed by investigators, identified a pool of blood as cranberry juice.
Abebe Beyene, who owns Mood Lounge, told DCist last month that her business had nothing to do with the stabbing incident. That wasn’t entirely the case, but last week, Beyene’s sister, Tita Gashaw, said the venue has been singled out among local nightspots.
“I’ve never heard of any establishment visited so much [by authorities],” Gashaw said in an interview outside ABRA’s office at the Frank D. Reeves Municipal Center on U Street NW. “It pushes clientele away.”
Gashaw, who works at Mood Lounge, said she was not on duty the evening of December 29. (The stabbings happened just after midnight on December 30.) She was standing outside the hearing room with Joseph Gessesse, who writes for The Ethiopian Times and came to Mood Lounge’s defense.
“It’s harassment,” he said of visits by police and regulatory authorities. “Ninth Street wasn’t where it was without our community.” Gashaw said that a neighbor called to complain about activity at the lounge on one of the evenings earlier this month when Jackson was conducting his training sessions.
According to the ABC Board’s decision, Mood was allowed to reopen last weekend with a few security-related provisions. All current employees will undergo security and alcohol awareness retraining, as will all new employees within a month of their start dates; the camera system will be upgraded; and Beyene will be required to submit, in writing, a revised security plan. Additionally, Mood Lounge was prohibited from using external promoters for events.
But those who sought the bar’s permanent closure are displeased by the ruling.
“Needless to say, we are very disappointed in the board’s decision,” Evans’ spokesman Andrew Huff wrote in an email. “We will continue to work with the relevant agencies and civic groups to ensure that the District’s laws and regulations are adhered to and that this establishment does not infringe on the neighborhood’s right to peace, order and quiet. This is clearly not the appropriate area for a night club and we stand by our call for its permanent closure.”
