Politics and Prose Pissed at ANC Nut
By now, thanks to Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, you may have already mustered a certain amount of righteous outrage at the antics of stickler advisory neighborhood commissioner Frank Winstead. Barbara Meade and Carla Cohen, the owners of the venerable Politics and Prose bookstore, however, seem to have just gathered theirs. This came out in their weekly newsletter last night:
Every once in a while we get an abrupt reminder that we live in a jurisdiction where small business is not respected or encouraged. When we first opened across the street, there was no government agency that could advise us on what we needed to do. Then, after we made the applications we needed to, we could not get an occupancy permit, no matter how many times we called or went down to the office responsible for that. The process simply stopped somewhere in the Office of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs. We were fined and we started over again, but the certificate was never issued at our first location.
A few years ago we were infuriated when, as a D.C. business, we had to pay a surtax for the new stadium. The rationale: the stadium would help businesses in the District of Columbia. We fail to see how the baseball stadium helps Politics and Prose, but perhaps we are just missing something.
The latest irrationality occurred when an inspector visited us last week and told us we had to remove the bench in front of our store or pay for a permit. The bench, which is used by our employees eating lunch, or by people accompanied by strollers or dogs, or occasionally by the homeless, seems harmless. But the inspector told us it had to be gone the next day or….
Apparently this latest problem is occasioned by a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Council who went to war to get rid of all the outside chairs and tables on our block. As many of you know, the sidewalk is very wide in front of our buildings so there is no problem walking there even with sidewalk fixtures. And we think lots of activity on the sidewalk—sitting, eating, and playing—make our block more lively and fun. But Mr. Frank Winstead doesn’t, and he has made it his personal mission to eliminate everything. You can write to Mr. Frank Winstead and express your opinion of his mission: fwwinstead@hotmail.com.
5 Responses to “Politics and Prose Pissed at ANC Nut”
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May 31st, 2008 at 6:46 am
Actually, thanks to Fisher, it looks like there’s some less-than-righteous indignation regarding Winstead.
Politics & Prose seems to just assume that this ANC Commissioner is behind the incident — geez, why don’t they ask everyone to harass the (unnamed) DDOT inspector who actually issued they ultimatum? Winstead denies he did.
And the permit in question involves a one page application and a one-time $19 fee, so this is really a tempest in a teapot.
That said, I agree generally with P&P’s comments re DC’s climate for small businesses. They’ve just chosen the wrong target for their anger/frustration.
May 31st, 2008 at 6:53 am
to clarify — Winstead denies that he complained to DDOT about the bench at Politics & Prose which, as he points out, is close enough to the building that it wasn’t clearly in public space. It wasn’t posing any danger or serving some commercial use. He saw no violation — apparently DDOT measured and concluded otherwise.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
That gets to my main beef with Mr. Winstead: He should have returned Marc Fisher’s repeated phone calls. I think his stance about public space is perfectly defensible—the law is clearly on his side—it just would be nice if he would defend it.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:20 pm
They all should leave good enough alone and let the people enjoy the few amenities in the neighborhood.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:56 am
Fisher consistently misrepresents anything involving development politics in this/his neighborhood. And the Post responds to complaints about his coverage by saying we don’t police facts in op-ed pieces. It’d be less of a problem if Metro did a better job on city politics, but often the only account in the paper is Fisher’s.
So I understand why Winstead didn’t return Fisher’s calls (though I’d have made a different judgment). And I don’t think that failure to call a reporter justifies ridicule and misrepresentation.
There are other ways to verify the facts (speak to other Commissioners on the ANC, ask DDOT who complained and/or to see the record of the complaint) or to make the case for public space permits. You could have done either of those things before posting this.