The proprietors of the recently opened Town Hall restaurant are fighting a curious battle with a tiny number of residents who live adjacent to the red-light district of Wisconsin Avenue Northwest.
Ten Hall Place households, along with two businesses, have found fault with the late-night hours of the upscale establishment in this litter-strewn, graffiti-marred, rat-infested stretch of urban decay.
The protesters cite the noise, which is amusing, given the noisy nature of commercial strips.
One of the mysteries of the spat is how someone could be mentally inert enough to move into a house behind a commercial strip and then have the temerity to complain about the noise on it. That is not unlike the person who moves to the countryside and then complains about the deer munching in the flower garden.
Hall Place, alas, is an artery of modest residences that sits behind Town Hall and a fading commercial strip that features two topless nightclubs, two “massage” parlors and an assortment of cart-pushing vagrants lured by a nearby homeless shelter. It is a cold, impersonal strip of petty thieves, the occasional stabbing and a high number of consumers with bladder-control trauma.
One of the topless nightclubs, the Good Guys, is endeavoring to purchase the restaurant next door to expand its business. This is seen as progress, while Town Hall is viewed as a threat to the area’s limited quality of life.
The five proprietors of Town Hall see the upside-down thought process in the blighted neighborhood and rue the decision to open a stylish, classy restaurant, which initially became a favored destination of the hip and trendy before its closing was scaled back to 11:30 p.m. to accommodate the cranky, crusty crusaders of Hall Place.
So doubt has replaced optimism inside Town Hall, where the need to have an alcohol-consuming, late-night crowd to be in the black is common among privately owned restaurants.
The hope of the proprietors is that common sense eventually will prevail with the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration and that the neighborhood will see the merit in shedding its reputation as a red-light district.
Paul Holder, one of Town Hall’s owners, suggests that the obtuse protesters are perhaps victims of the lead in the city’s water.
“Their position smacks of elitism and ignorance,” he says.
As a good neighbor, Mr. Holder has pity on them. He understands it is not easy going through life in a sad, sallow fog. Yet this is his business. It is his livelihood. And these protesters, victims though they may be of the urban ill in their midst, are attempting to sabotage his business, while purporting to know what is best for the restaurant and red-light district.
Mr. Holder has tried to connect with the community since opening his establishment in late summer. His restaurant has sponsored softball and basketball teams and has donated to many local charities. He has attended the Advisory Neighborhood Commission meetings each month to air his message. He also has shown up to the meetings of the local civic association, headed by a ponytailed fellow who has an unsettling Cheech and Chong quality about him.
“You cannot reason with these people,” Mr. Holder says. “They are protesting my place, but not a topless place looking to expand. Does that make any sense?” None of it makes sense, not even the protest of the Subway shop on one side of Town Hall and the DeVol Funeral Home on the other. Mr. Holder assumes his place is disturbing the sleep of the dead in the funeral home and the vermin that feast in the alleys of restaurants.
Perhaps a third “massage” parlor will be necessary to restore the peace and civility in this struggling corridor of the city.
The suggestion brings an impish grin to Mr. Holder’s face.
The providers and patrons engaged in the practice of “massage” are accustomed to working in hushed tones.
That is a business the ultrasensitive ears of Hall Place could celebrate.
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