Yuppie Applauds Single Beers
H Street NE folks these days are trying to push through a ban on single sales of beer at certain outlets, a gentrifying tradition of sorts in the District. The NIMBYs along H are following the lead of like-minded revitalizers along the city’s gentrification belt—including, of course, those in Mount Pleasant and along Georgia Avenue—in taking aim at people they believe are dragging the ‘hood down. Bums, that is, whose lifestyle they believe would take a hit if they couldn’t access single beers.
Well, I’m gainfully employed, and I love the single beer. I must confess that years ago, I didn’t see the point. If I bought beer, it was either in a six-pack, case, or keg. That’s because I was generally consuming it with friends or at a party. I agreed with the activists that the single was for folks who’d most likely down their beer out on the street.
Now, though, I am married, and a big can of Corona or Heineken has become a perfect dinner libation for the Mr. and Mrs. At least five times over the past year, I’ve picked up singles from either Cairo Liquor or Best-In Liquors, in Dupont and Logan Circles, respectively. I could buy a six, but that’s too heavy and cumbersome and expensive, and I don’t need to keep the fridge stocked with beer. I could buy a keg, but I don’t have a bar, entertainment center, or tap, so that’s not an option. I want my singles. And if I should ever move to H Street, I’ll want my singles there as well.
In the mid-’90s, a big debate within City Paper unfolded over just this issue. I argued that the ban was reasonable. A colleague of mine, the astute John Cloud, responded, “Sometimes, you just want one.”
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5:14 pm
I was wondering who was leaving those 40 oz cans of Steele Reserve in the alley. For shame! And just who do you think you’re kidding about the “Y” portion in YUPPIE, eh, Eric? ;)
OTOH, this impacts the high-end beer drinkers too, just price out those two-packs of Trappist ales at Whole Paycheck.
6:33 pm
Well, if you happen to be anywhere near the eastern end of the corridor (1200-1400 blocks of H Street), all you need do is head north a couple of blocks to Florida Ave, or head straight up Bladensburg Road. These businesses are outside the reach of the proposed ban, and only time will tell exactly how this will impact things. I’m not sure how many people realize that lots of the guys on the corner of 12th & H buy their beers on Florida Ave.
6:47 pm
“If I can’t have just one, I don’t want ANY!” –Is that what NIMBYs expect ‘em to say?
See, this stupid ban is just going to make bums like me wait until I’ve scratched up enough for the full six-pack–I’ll be getting more booze for my buck!
10:48 pm
I find it more than a little amusing that someone who buys their singles in Dupont Circle and Logan Circle has the nerve to write off those of us who live on H Street and support a singles ban as NIMBYs. This proposal is a response to an easily documented situation – you need only walk through the alleys on either side of H Street to see the accumulated empties from those whose thirst simply couldn’t wait (and the accumulation that comes from their bladders being unable to wait afterwards).
For some odd reason, these empties tend to be overwhelmingly singles. Either the folks who buy the six packs and the full-size spirits are more conscientious about where they throw their empties, or – just maybe – the availability of singles along H Street is contributing directly to the litter and the public drinking. We’re banking on the latter – and we’re trying to take a step to cut down on the drinking and the litter that accompanies it.
I guess the only way you’d be willing to accept this as a proactive response to a problem that affects our neighborhood instead of a “not in my backyard” response from the forces of gentrification is if we pushed for a citywide ban on singles…or would you require us to go nationwide to make sure we’re not just looking out for our backyard?
7:39 am
I don’t understand the argument that if we ban singles we’ll STOP LITTER. Huh? Yeah, who likes litter? Let’s combat that problem then — lets have a bottle/can deposit program (you’ll find those cans and bottles will DISAPPEAR if people collected them to get the deposit back). Or raise the fines for littering? Or put more trash cans around or somehow instill in DC-ers a sense of pride in place — other cities have had great anti-littering campaigns. And since when are singles the main litter problem. Every day in my neighborhood in Petworth I find far more fast-food drink cups around than anything — perhaps we should eliminate those? Singles are cheap and convenient — and for all of us that live in small apartments or have a limited budget, they are the best form for buying. It’s an absolutely asinine way to combat a litter problem — unless it’s not a litter problem you are concerned about. But actually find the whole idea of single too down-market for your refined lifestyle. So heck? Let’s ban being poor.
9:17 am
Whether intentionally or accidentally, you seem to be fixated on one aspect of my post to the exclusion of the rest of it. I don’t think anyone (myself included) believes that banning the sale of singles will eliminate all litter – or even just the litter that comes from people who can’t be bothered to throw their singles in the numerous trashcans nearby.
What we (I?) do believe, however, is that singles ARE definitely part of the litter problem…and part of the public intoxication problem…and part of the public urination problem…and part of the loitering problem. And if those singles can’t be bought on H Street, then all of these problems that they contribute to are likely to be reduced.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying “I don’t care if you drink, just do it somewhere else.” That’s the NIMBY attitude that the author accuses us (me) of, but it’s not why I support the ban. I support it because I believe it will have a demonstrable impact on litter, drunkenness, loitering and public urination – all of which are problems currently facing my neighborhood.
I don’t consider any of these things to be a result of people being poor, which seems to be the implication of the previous poster. I consider them to be a result of a lack of pride and ownership in the neighborhood from the people who do them – many of whom don’t live in the neighborhood and couldn’t care less what it looks like because they’re just hanging out and then moving on. I believe a lack of available singles will give less of a reason to hang out and will allow for more of the ‘pride of place’ to show through.
9:37 am
While I’m not a big fan of alley drinking (unless, of course, it’s me doing it), my expectation is that a deposit on cans and bottles would do wonders for the problem folks claim to be trying to address. But, as with many things, I rather doubt we’re all talking about the same problem. And so I also rather doubt we’re all waiting with baited breath for the same benefit.
Let’s not kid ourselves- this is more about class and, therefor unfortunately, race, than it is about cleanliness. Unless one defines cleanliness VERY broadly.
5:53 pm
Mark,
Get a clue. I don’t really care how much money you have or what race you are – if you’re peeing on the side of my house and then throwing your 40-ounce bottle in my yard I have a probem. Singles are a problem because they allow people to conveniently and cheaply get liquored up and then wreak havoc on the neighborhood. And yes, Al Coholic, if Joe Alley pisser has to scrounge up more money and then carry around his load of brew- he will will inconvenienced. Exactly what I want. With inconvenience comes less of the affore mentioned problems we live with daily. DC 1974, I don’t find singles “too down market”, but I do find their impacts intollerable. I have walked through my alley full of 40s and piss too many times to think twice about your thinly veiled accusations of classism and racism. Being poor and black does not automatically mean you are a drunkard and have disavowed indoor plumbing. I think your comments say more about you and your assumptions than the efforts of the neighborhood to improve itself.
8:31 pm
Rick:
Thanks for the response. You strike me as defensive, ignorant, and self-deluding. Good luck stopping the drunks pissing on your wall. The singles ban hasn’t stopped that anywhere it’s been instituted anymore than outlawing cigarette papers stops dope smokers from emptying out cheap cigars and filling them up with pot, or whatever. Addicts will be addicts. Bad neighbors will be bad neighbors. They’re driven by compulsion to adapt. Changing the size of the bottle for sale, or the number that can be purchased at once, isn’t really going to impact that.
If you want to tamp down on public urination, step up the police pressure on the streets, alleys, and parks. If you want to diminish littering, lobby to institute a can (and bottle) deposit and up the littering fines and enforcement.
A ban on singles is fig-leaf. It suits those politicians and members of the administration who want to seem to appeal to the new middle class, but who don’t want/can’t do the hard work of actual legal enforcement or policy work. And it’s accepted as progress by the naïve.
By the way, I’m a white guy and I’ve been known to carry an open beer across the street or alley to talk to a neighbor. Heck, I’ve carried open containers off my stoop to talk with MPD patrols about crime. It’s not that behavior, I suspect, you have a problem with. My apologies if my accusations of racism and classism were thinly veiled. I’d intended them to be overt.
9:32 pm
“If you want to diminish littering, lobby to institute a can (and bottle) deposit)…”
While you’re at it, lobby to institute a public can for me to deposit my piss in it! I’m homeless.
9:47 pm
Nah, let’s just all agree to open the bathrooms in our homes and businesses to our resident homeless! Yeah, that’ll work. If it doesn’t, we can just agree that your present existence is too offensive for us to tolerate and ship you across the river.
11:33 pm
Speaking for myself, Mark, I wouldn’t have a problem with you carrying open containers off your stoop. I would have a problem, though, if you walked over to my front steps and pissed all over them. I suspect that you’d have a problem if I did the same to your stoop. You may think that a singles ban doesn’t help solve that problem, and you may even be correct about that. But your bald-faced suggestion that it’s racism that drives those advocating such a ban, and not the (however misguided) desire to stop people from pissing all over their property, makes you look really, really bad. I mean, really — couldn’t you leave it at “a singles ban won’t help solve the problem”? Or do you have some evidence that the people you’re accusing of racism are in fact racists — photos, video, past writings? Or, instead, are you just a jerk?
11:12 am
Chris:
I’m just calling it as I see it. Of course class and race are intertwined in DC- it’s obvious. Sorry if my observation of that fact offends or inconveniences you. But it’s not honest to discuss such things without examining motives or effects.
Mark
5:17 pm
i like Mark.
6:49 pm
Mark:
Yes, of course class and race are intertwined with each other in DC. But class and race are not necessarily the driving factors in every single person’s opinion about every single issue, even in this town.
There’s nothing wrong with calling it like you see it — provided, of course, that you’re not seeing things.
5:20 pm
I don’t really care how much money you have or what race you are – if you’re peeing on the side of my house and then throwing your 40-ounce bottle in my yard I have a probem.
Ding-a-fucking-ling. Mark can go back to Reston town center. Our neighborhood doesn’t exist to give lilly-white yuppies from the burbs a thrilling anti-Disneyland experience, you race-baiting dill-whistle.
7:06 pm
ibc: perhaps you shouldn’t type in front of a mirror?
5:26 pm
Mark you really suck. Try living next to 4 bus stops and having your alley as the public latrine. Or riding on the bus while some drunken piece of shit with a single serve vomits next to you. This isn’t a white or black thing…you moron. God, why do idiots like you need to polarize race when race has nothing to do with the problem. It’s behavior that is the problem. Oh and about litter fines, I had a police officer tell me that there are no litter laws in DC; dumping perhaps but no litter laws.