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'Gay enterprise zone' pitched for D.C.
By Tim Lemke
Washington Business Journal
Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2005
Gay activists and business owners want the D.C. Council to help find a spot in the city to relocate six sexually oriented businesses that likely will be displaced by the Washington Nationals' new baseball stadium.
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For the first time since the council approved plans for a ballpark along South Capitol Street in Southeast, gay activists will formally ask members of the council to play a role in finding new homes for businesses along O Street -- some of the most popular and controversial destinations for gays in the city.
Among their suggestions during a Feb. 28 panel discussion will be creation of a "gay enterprise zone" in the District. Councilmembers Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, and Kwame Brown, D-at large, are expected to attend.
The new ballpark is planned for land bordered by N Street to the north and South Capitol Street to the west. More than half of it is vacant, but the site includes a stretch of O Street that is occupied by six dance clubs, strip clubs and adult-movie theaters catering to gay customers. The businesses are owned by Robert Siegel, an ANC commissioner who operates businesses under the name Glorious Health and Amusements. He declined to comment on the future of his businesses, some of which the city would have to acquire to pave the way for the stadium.
At this point, however, neither Mayor Tony Williams' office nor the D.C. Office of Planning and Economic Development has reached out to any business owner in the area. They're waiting for a final land analysis from D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi.
Gay activists say closing the O Street businesses would effectively kill a popular gathering center in the District, and put at risk HIV awareness campaigns and other programs formed in the neighborhood.
In a letter to Williams, long-time gay activist Frank Kameny says the city has a "moral obligation" to help relocate all the businesses to a single site near a Metro station and with adequate parking.
"We are dealing with a gay community institution ... and that is the way that the D.C. government should deal with it -- the institution -- not them -- the businesses," Kameny writes. "The D.C. government has an obligation to provide for them collectively."
Activists say they want the council to craft one-time legislation that would supercede any regulations governing where the businesses can locate. Under current zoning, the affected O Street clubs would not be allowed to relocate within 300 feet of one another, or within 600 feet of a school, library or church. That's too restrictive, Kameny says.
Other activists -- including members of The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, which is hosting the panel discussion -- are taking a less aggressive tone. Club President David Meadows says the meeting will be a simple "back-and-forth discussion about the future of these businesses."
Of equal concern to the future of the O Street businesses, Meadows says, is the possibile shuttering of three popular gay clubs -- Nation, Wet and The Edge, located on M Street, north of the ballpark footprint. Those clubs could close if the city acquires land outside the actual ballpark site, as part of a master plan for the entire Anacostia waterfront.
No one rules out the possibility of acquiring businesses outside the ballpark footprint. But officials generally agree that if the city displaces a business, it should help with relocation.
Graham, who chairs the council's Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Committee, doesn't even know whether the council even has the power to one-time waive regulations. Zoning experts say the chances of sexually oriented businesses getting a zoning variance are slim.
Council members and gay activists said they expect discussions to become tense, in part because some residents oppose the sexual nature of the businesses and creation of a so-called "red light district" in the city.
"This is going to take some careful consideration of what to do," says Graham. "The solution is not immediately obvious."
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