Mart Liquors Gets Their Liquor License: ANC 8C Has Screwed Us Once Again
After contacting the Alcohol Beverage and Regulation Agency (ABRA) this morning (voicemail messages left on Friday were not returned) to confirm the posted public hearing for the liquor renewal license of Mart Liquor it was learned that there would be NO public hearing today because there was no protest/petition recieved by ABRA by the May 28th deadline.
Despite written notifications going to all 8C Commissioners (including "Chair" Cuthbert) no one lodged a protest. As such since there was no protest on file by either ANC 8C, MPD or a group of at least 5 residents from the community (not surprising since most of the community was unaware the license was up for renewal) then the public hearing was waived and the license WAS granted.
The community can still file complaints about Mart Liquor which depending on the type of offense may be investigated by ABRA but for the time being Mart Liquors has their liquor license for the next 3 years and has no incentive to participate in a Voluntary Agreement that could have at least addressed and alleviated some community concerns.
The Advoc8te has a word of advice for residents plagued with nuisance liquor stores of their own. Stay on top of it. Do NOT assume that your elected officials are on the ball. Take the lead yourself and do all that you can. Perhaps the the overwhelming number of liquor stores in the community is an indicator of how off the ball or powerless the current and past leadership has been in curbing the number of liquor stores in the River East community. Perhaps more power needs to be afforded to our ANCs and to residents to make the process easier and the concerns of the community addressed. Perhaps Mayor Fenty can be persuaded to initiate the sort of "crackdown" on liquor stores that he has focused on used car lots and repair shops.
We will not stop fighting but it would be wonderful if we had all of our working parts united as one.
The following email was sent to Commissioners William Ellis ( 8C01@anc.dc.gov ) and Dion Jordan ( 8C02@anc.dc.gov ) of ANC 8C. FYI- Commissioners Cuthbert, Shelton and Lockridge do not have email addresses posted and only Commissioner Lockridge has a phone number posted. Makes you wonder how as commissioners they expect the community to be able to communicate with them with no posted contact information. The Advoc8te invites other residents to contact all the ANC 8C Commissioners to express their feelings on how this situation was handled (or lack thereof).
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ANC 8C Commissioners William Ellis and Dion Jordan-
I am emailing both of you as you are the only two commissioners on the ANC board with an email address. If I thought for just a moment that I would not be wasting my time speaking to the other three commissioners I would have contacted them as well. Either way I wanted to reach out to both of you before going public with this information. I am cc'ing other members of the ANC 8C community so they can know firsthand what has happened and what was said.
After it was made crystal clear from past ANC meetings that ANC 8C under the direction of it's current "Chairman" had no plans as a commission to officially notify the community regarding the Mart Liquor licence hearing (Commissioner Jordan did make aware to some of us in the community of the upcoming license but no action or notification was done in ANC 8C mtngs) and the total lack of action by the ANC regarding a protest (or even an answer to my question re the petition at the last meeting) we decided to take action. Several of us in the community got together this weekend to at least testify today at the scheduled public hearing to protest the license renewal. Once it became clear that ANC 8C had no plan then we took the issue to the people and close to 40 people expressed an interest in closing that liquor store down.
If it [the information regarding the liquor license renewal] was just shared with the people during prior ANC 8C meetings that could have translated into action. We were hopefully that we would at least have our say.
Imagine our surprise and utter disappointment to find out this morning [June 8th] that since there was no protest on file to the liquor license by May 28th - (despite notifications to all the members of the Commission -including the Chair)that there would be NO public hearing. We in the community were once again robbed of an opportunity to make real improvements to our community - PROACTIVE improvements to our community. Mart Liquors was awarded their liquor license for another three years. As was told to me by ABRA our ANC was appropriately informed and it was their responsibility to share the information with the community and if necessary file a protest.
Well we all know what ANC 8C is supposed to do and what they won't/can't do. Perhaps this could have been avoided if we had been allowed to share community concerns in the May meeting but we all know how that turned out. To be fair we share part of the blame. After all this time and all the disappointments and the total lack of moving the ball forward as an ANC we should have literally taken the ball and ran with it instead of relying on ANC 8C to take the lead for the community or at least explain the process. We should have known that no action was taken place that it was far more important to fill the agenda (which according to Commissioner Cuthbert is booked through September) with overall pointless guest speakers than action. It has become painfully clear both through the actions and lack of actions of our ANC as well as the frustrations voiced by you both that there definitely needs to be a change....a change of ANC commissioners.
We are going to be taking that same energy and community support that we were directing at removing Mart Liquors from the community and we are going to refocus it on removing ineffective ANC Commissioners through a recall. Maybe something will happen with it maybe not either way we are going to do something because it is painfully obvious that THIS commission in it's current state just isn't working. Please do not give us any excuses or any explanations on how this fell through the cracks. Everyone on that commission had a responsibility to the community and it was not upheld. Just because someone says it's okay to do nothing doesn't mean that you can sit idly by and allow actions to be taken (or not taken) that are not benefiting the community. I am sure the job of an ANC Commissioner is not easy but it is a job that you ran for and were elected for. There are responsibilities in that. As a community we deserve an apology and even more so we deserve action. In this case we got nothing....more of the same. Thank you so much for your time and attention.
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