Sunday, September 21, 2008

washington times mentions bloomingdale


Residents see bar as threat to calm
Fear return of crimes, drugs


At a recent community meeting, Mrs. Holliday expressed the thoughts of many older Bloomingdale residents.

"It's too fragile, this level of peacefulness and calm and cleanliness," she said. "We've had that less than six months and to bring in a major thing like that and the drug dealers are right back."


here is the article


Are you afraid of a tavern?
Do you see it as a threat?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I picked an empty vodka bottle out of the treebox in front of my home on R St. NW in Bloomingdale yesterday. Now there is an empty McDonalds drink cup laying where the vodka bottle was.

I wouldn't use the word "cleanliness" to characterize the area just yet. But I WOULD go so far as to say that Baraki will be an asset to the neighborhood, and it will not draw customers who are inclined to throw their trash in treeboxes.

bamoll said...

I think it's a terrible article. Instead of focusing on what an asset this place will be in our beautiful, unique neighborhood, they decided to focus on the controversy and our (apparent) crime problem. Let's be clear, most of the controversy over Baraki is over the small details - not the place itself. I would guess that over two thirds of the neighborhood wants this place in some way, shape or form similar to what has been proposed. And with appologies of how this sounds, to even suggest that opening a restaurant & tavern is going to generate crime compared to the crime that a block of abandoned buildings generates is just plain misguided.

Anonymous said...

No I'm not afraid of the tavern and I don't think it's a threat. I would welcome it with open arms. I've been to their other properties, and while I don't think they'll win any awards for the food, they're solid and well run.

IMGoph said...

this was a terrible article. to be narcissistic for a minute, you think that, if they mention a blog (like mine, which they did) they would try to get in touch with the person who runs that site to ask a few questions.

this paints an image of our neighborhood as 1) very dangerous, 2) full of nothing but NIMBYs, and 3) very much against this plan.

none of that could be farther from the truth. i always give the times credit for its local coverage, which is usually decent. but they dropped the ball on this one big time...