Photo by poppyott

If you live in a residential neighborhood and an irresponsible bar-owner around the corner plays music way too loud with his windows open, you’d have good reason to file a complaint. But what if you lived a street over? Or two blocks away? Those are questions that a D.C. Council committee will debate this afternoon.

As part of a bill that will broadly update the city’s liquor laws—including allowing Sunday liquor sales—Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) included a provision that would limit standing for complaints over bars to residents—in groups of five—that live within 400 feet of them. Currently, no such regulation applies—you could just as well file a complaint with city regulators over a bar that’s next door as one that’s clear across town.

For Graham and many bar-owners, the proposal is a means to ensure that small and isolated groups of individuals can’t hold up a liquor license renewal or alteration, especially when an Advisory Neighborhood Commission or civic association already worked with the bar-owners on a voluntary agreement that can govern everything from operating hours to the volume of music played. Hank’s Oyster Bar in Dupont Circle recently had to deal with such a protest, leaving half of its outdoor space closed for months.

But for some residents, the proposal infringes upon their rights to complain when a bar-owner is a troublemaker. In an op-ed published in the Northwest Current last week, Denis James, the president of the Kalorama Citizens Association, said that if a radius has to be imposed at all, it should encompass residents living within 1,800 feet of a bar. According to him, Kalorama residents suffer from the drunken antics of party-goers leaving Adams Morgan bars, but under Graham’s bill would lose standing to protest.

Graham, though, says that individual complaints for noise violations are one thing, while someone urinating in public eight blocks away from a bar is another.

The hearing kicks off at 5 p.m. today, and Graham has said that he would like the council to vote on his legislation before the end of the year.