Right when you thought the Lincoln Theatre was all cashed out, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty announced earlier today that the District plans to develop two city-owned properties behind the theater and use a portion of the funds generated by the properties to support the theater’s future operations.

Fenty says its his hope that the two properties on the 90,000-square-foot parking lot will bring in enough revenue to help keep the cash-strapped 88-year-old theater afloat.

Early last year, Lincoln officials threatened to shut down the once-popular theater due to lack of finances until the D.C. gov put up a $200,000 grant to keep the doors open. The District also spent another $1.5 million last year for capital improvements that are nearly complete.

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham and At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown also attended the announcement today outside the theaterss U Street entrance.

“We want to bring the Lincoln Theatre where it should be,” said Graham, who has been on the theater’s board for 10 years.

It was a shame the announcement did not take place in the back parking lot so everyone could see where all the action was taking place. The District is requiring that any development will provide ongoing financial support for the theater and include at least 7,500 square feet of flexible event space. Bids for the site are due by July 18 and construction is scheduled to begin by October of this year.

Opened in 1922, the Lincoln Theatre is known for hosting big-name performers, including Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Early next month, Maya Angelou is scheduled to celebrate her 80th birthday there. Maybe she can give over her birthday cash to help out?

—Whitney Boyd

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is announcing right now that his administration will not give D.C. cab drivers an extension for their May 1 deadline to place meters in their taxis. The matter is in the news lately, thanks to a lawsuit by the drivers that challenges the administration’s ability to ram through this regulation.

A D.C. Superior Court judge yesterday ruled against the cabbies, leaving them little more than a week to get their meters installed. The situation prompted some talk about pushing the deadline back, but Fenty this morning closed the door on such leniency.

—reporting by Mike DeBonis

UPDATE, 12 P.M.: Turns out that though Fenty says there’s no extension, there actually is an extension. Read more.

The travails of Murky Coffee at Eastern Market got a lot of attention in the local press. City Desk was all over it, as were community publications and the Washington Post. All the ink generated a lot of interest in the space that Murky vacated after losing the location to a seizure by the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.

“The biggest thing we’ve learned from this process is that from now on, we’re putting seizure signs on our properties whenever we want to rent them,” jokes Ken Golding of Stanton Development, the company that owns the building that housed Murky, which owed the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid sales taxes. Golding says that, since the seizure, potential renters have veritably stormed the storefront.

Though Stanton has yet to select just who the much sought after lease will go to, the group of candidates has been boiled down to four. Golding says that he wishes the company could pick all the contenders, because “they’re all great.” He also assures coffee-loving Capitol Hillites that each prospective tenant has plans to open an independent coffee shop. Here’s to hoping that they independently pay their sales taxes.–Rend Smith

5:30 p.m., near the Vatican embassy.  John Wojnowski, who has been protesting across the street from the Vatican embassy every day since late 1997, early 1998, is up the street a block or so from his usual spot, accompanied by a tall photographer who is smoking a cigar.

John holds his sign—POPE HIDES PEDOPHILES—and begins to tell his life story, which is very sad, and just after the point where hs is 15 years old in a small village in Italy and the priest molests him, a reporter from the Washington Post turns up.

“Where were you today?” the reporter asks John.

“I was here,” he says.

“Why weren’t you here at noon when the Pope came by?” she asks.

“I had no plans to be here,” John says. “I come on my time. I have other things to do.  Go to the library.”

The reporter looks flummoxed. “You’re a hero,” she says.  “People told me you’re a hero. I’m on deadline. I wrote the story how you weren’t here, now you’re here.”

“My only access to the Internet is at the library.  I have my routine,” John says.

“Do you have a cell number?” asks the reporter.

“I do but it’s private,” John says.

The reporter looks even more flummoxed and tries another tack. “What do you think of the pope’s visit?” she asks.

“It’s an opportunity for reporters to see me,” John says.

Other pedestrians walk by holding up their thumbs in support, and John thanks them, then starts to tell his story again, starting from where he is a 20-year-old refugee working as a dishwasher in Canada, and suddenly remembers being abused. Meanwhile, the photographer hands out business cards to the reporters and to John. “I do freelance work,” the photographer says, still smoking his cigar.

A police officer drives by on an ATV on the sidewalk and says, “How you doing John?” and in response John holds up his other sign, which reads: My Life Was Ruined By A Catholic Priest.

A pedestrian walks by and says, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I’m proud,” John says. “Never been prouder.”

—Arin Greenwood

Around 4:45 yesterday afernoon on Mass Ave, at the blockade across the street from the Naval Observatory, the massive crowd is on the south side of the street, but there are five or six people on the north side who can’t go anywhere (says the police) until the Pope’s come and gone. Meanwhile, there is a cavalcade of motorcycles hanging around by the blockade, not going anywhere.

One woman, wearing a bright (bright!) yellow sweater, a green Lilly Pulitzer skirt, and black patent leather flats, is there with her son, who is carrying a Vatican flag. The woman holds a handwritten sign: Danti Auguri Papa. She says it means “Happy Birthday Pope.” She also says she and her son have been waiting, at thisgate, since 3 p.m. “My brother’s a priest,” she says. The blond teacher standing nearby says she just turned up a few minutes ago because she felt like she should; she teaches at a Catholic school and lives just up the street, for Pete’s sake, plus she saw John Paul II in 1979, so she sort of has to come watch the Pope now.

A man in a brown shirt, with a tan woman carrying a Dooney & Burke purse, makes fun of the people across the street, since this side of the street is so clearly superior. “They’re not from Washington,” he says. “Are you from Washington?”

Around five more people start to turn up, blocked by the fence and the police. Most of these people have baby carriages or briefcases. They live nearby and somehow failed to properly time their commute, like the woman in the striped skirt with the black heels and the posh British accent, who, frustrated that she can’t get home, starts to shout at the police, “I have a plane to catch!”

The blond teacher smirks, says that everyone on this street’s been warned that the street would be closed. “I don’t feel sorry for her,” she says.

“Another reason this spot is good?” says the man in the brown shirt. “It’s the narrower point of the road.”

Someone suggests to the woman in the striped skirt that she hike past the barricade in the woods if she’s in such a hurry. “In these shoes?” she says.

At around a quarter past five, a helicopter flies overhead, then the procession starts, and the woman in the yellow sweater holds out her happy birthday sign and everyone else pulls out a camera. First come the motorcycles, then the police, then a limo—flying a Vatican flag. You can just catch a glimpse of a bald-ish man in a white robe through the back window. Then it’s the rest of the cars, the buses, the ambulance, and it’s done. Seconds later, the fence is down and everyone is gone. The woman in the yellow sweater, walking up toward Georgetown, seems happy. The pope, she thinks, saw her sign.

—Arin Greenwood

And so’s my street. Filming has begun on State of Play, the new Ben Affleck flick being shot on location in our fair city. The cool thing is that while most D.C.-based movies center around government buildings and monuments, this one is being shot – at least partially – in the neighborhoods. Exact filming times are hush-hush (to discourage you stalkers and gawkers who would crowd around to get a glimpse of Affleck or his co-star, Russell Crowe, or of course, my boyfriend, “a delivery guy” who’s working tomorrow.)

Crowe’s character lives in an apartment above Pfeiffer’s Hardware and Heller’s Bakery. Apparently the recent fire in Mt. Pleasant hasn’t set back the filming schedule, but something must have – they were supposed to shoot here March 29, but that’s been postponed.

In the meantime, they’ve recreated the whole Pfeiffer’s/Heller’s strip in Hollywood, building a whole new façade exactly like the real one. The set-builders, however, finished the job without having seen the Heller’s sign lit up; they guessed it lit up blue – but they were wrong, and so they’ve paid the bakery to replace the red lights in the sign to match their blue-lighted Hollywood set. They’re replacing Pfeiffer’s sign with a new one, too — still called Pfeiffer’s Hardware — but the store won’t be keeping it up because it doesn’t accord with historic standards.

Rumor has it there will also be a scene shot at Ben’s Chili Bowl and maybe the Kennedy Center.

The movie is about investigative reporters and police officers digging up the truth about the murder of a Congressman’s mistress. I wonder if Gary Condit will play himself? —Tanya Snyder

The Capitol Hill Current Voice of The Hill reports that “Murky Coffee owes the District 427,395 in unpaid sales tax dating back to November 2004.” This information comes courtesy of Natalie Wilson of the city’s Office of Tax and Revenue. The new number puts Murky Cafe owner Nick Cho’s debt at almost twice that of what was reported here on Feb. 27.

For those with an unquenchable fascination with the ins and outs of the Capitol Hill Murky demise, here’s an e-mail interview with tax office Deputy General Counsel William Bowie:

1)How did Murky Coffee get to this point?

Answer: While I cannot provide you with specific taxpayer information, generally a seizure will take place if a taxpayer ignores tax deficiency notices we send them, fail to submit financial information to determine if they can maintain a payment plan, fail to meet with us to discuss the tax situation and fail to stay current on there tax obligations while discussing there delinquent situation, then they are candidates for a seizure. Also, if it involves delinquent sales tax for multiple periods they will also be candidates for a seizure.

2) What prompted you to move on Murky now? It’s been a couple of years, right?

See answer for #1

3)What are Murky’s options?

Answer: Pay the outstanding sales tax delinquency.

4) Will the Murky in Arlington be effected? Why or why not?

Answer: We have the option of pursuing the assets of a delinquent taxpayer wherever they may be. There is a legal process for doing this and this is an option we would look at executing.

5) What will happen to the property if owner Nick Cho is unable to pay?

Answer: If the taxpayer fails to pay the liability the seized assets owned by the taxpayer will be auctioned.

6) Did Cho receive any sort of warning on the morning of the seizure?

Answer: Before we seize taxpayer assets they generally will receive multiple notices and calls warning them of the consequences for failing to come into tax compliance.

7) Cho’s place was raided around 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Is it usual practice to do this sort of thing during business hours? Why or why not?

Answer: If the establishment is open during normal work hours then that is when we will do the seizure. We have commenced doing some seizures of businesses that are only open after normal business hours. i.e., nightclubs, restaurants only open for dinner.

Cho said, “It’s like when you get caught speeding, was i speeding? Yes. Does this feel like bullshit? Yes.” What’s your take on his angst?

Answer: If a taxpayer knows he owes us sales tax monies, receives notices of such and still fails to make arrangements to pay, then they should know what the probable outcome will be. Sales tax monies are monies the merchant hold in trust for payment to DC government. Those monies are used to pay for city services. The merchant has no right to spend those monies for their own purposes. It is against the law.

9) How common is all this?

Answer: Unfortunately, as business tax delinquencies increase, particularly for failure to pay sales tax, our tax seizures will increase.

–Rend Smith

Tacked to the window of Murky Coffee in Eastern Market is a half-torn letter that the shop has received from Attorney Morris R. Battino. The letter addresses Murky owner Nick Cho and states:

Dear Mr. Cho/ Murky Coffee LLC

As you are aware, I am legal counsel to and for the owner /landlord at 660/666. Pennsylvania Ave, S.E. Washington D.C. 20003

This is your official (30) day notice to quit and vacate the premises at 660/666 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. Washington D.C. 20003. Due to expiration of your month to month lease term. If you do not vacate or[sic] before May 1, 2008, the landlord/owner will file an action for possession in the Landlord and Tenant Branch of the District of Columbia Superior Court.

According to someone from the Battino office, Murky Coffee has an outstanding balance but will be evicted regardless of whether they pay their back rent or not.

The storefront has “possibly” already been rented to someone else, the source adds.

As reported previously in this space, Murky in late February was shut down by D.C. tax authorities over an unpaid tax bill tallying roughly $220,000.–Rend Smith

In a recent broadcast of “This American Life” Burroughs Elementary School parent Maria Jones, interviewed by journalist Jon Jeter, calls Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s proposal to close down 23 district schools a “land grab.” In making her point, Jones mentions two former school buildings sold to developers and converted into swank condos: Pierce School (now Pierce School Lofts) and Lovejoy School (now Lovejoy Lofts).

She’s not crazy. Quite a few other ritzy apartment buildings have origins as DCPS properties. Bryant School Lofts, Lennox School Condos, Berret School Lofts, and Carbery School Lofts, for example.

When asked whether the District was shutting down schools in order to sell public land to hungry developers, D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s spokesperson, Mafara Hobson, responded that the claim was “absolutely not true.” “There are a number of rumors circulating, but parents and residents should know that there are no immediate plans for the school buildings.” Hobson added there would be a “separate public process to determine alternate uses for the buildings.”

Contacted on this matter, Jones counters that “immediate plans” is the key phrase. “They’ll let them[the buildings] sit there for a few years, then either sell them to developers or give them over to charters. It all points towards privatization,” she says. Jones describes the school closures as a “corporate heist” and warns that in the District, “all our public property is being threatened, period.”

Though the school her daughter attends was recently taken off of the administration’s “hit list”, Jones said that she’ll continue to work against the closures.

“Even my little daughter knows that school reform does not mean closing buildings.”

—Rend Smith

And why wouldn’t we? Where else can you find neon pink dog leashes, graduation-themed photo albums, sidewalk chalk, wicker lawn chairs, mascara, monkey-shaped sippy cup and cookie jar sets, HDTVs, soccer balls, Hannah Montana PJ’s, and “Live/Laugh/Love” wall hangings all under one roof?

The long-awaited opening of the city’s largest shopping mall began at 8:00 this morning with throngs of shoppers bursting through the doors. The corner of 14th and Irving in Columbia Heights will never be the same.

Read the rest of this entry »

Murky Coffee on Capitol Hill yesterday received a visit from authorities with the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. The revenue cops shut down the popular Eastern Market hangout at around 10 a.m., hustling out customers and taping notices to the cafe windows.

Murky, it turns out, owed some back taxes.

“It’s like when you get caught speeding,” says owner Nick Cho. “Was I speeding? Yes. Does this feel like bullshit? Yes.”

“It was old sales tax stuff that we missed,” Cho explains. “From there, the penalties and fines kept growing.” According to court records, Cho’s debt stands somewhere around $220,000. Though he knew something like Tuesday’s seizure could happen, the chief barista was surprised by the raid. He’d been negotiating with tax officials, and though they were playing “good cop, bad cop” with him, he thought the talks were going well.

Cho hopes to re-open Murky in the next few days, and though he thinks the tax office went overboard, the coffeephile, whose crackerjack barista team recently took home a second place trophy in a Mid-Atlantic barista competition, mostly blames himself. “I’ve got to live up to my responsibility,” he says. “That’s all there is to it.”

—Rend Smith

I lived in Cuba from 2002 to 2004, slipping in under one of the U.S. government’s few exceptions to its travel ban and learning Cuba’s eccentricities and contradictions. A beer costs a tenth of a professional’s monthly salary, but health care and education are free, food and housing are subsidized, and dammit, you can’t help loving a Latin American country whose children aren’t going blond and blind from malnutrition in the streets. Cuba is a montage of sugar fields and spandex, billboards about the Battle of Ideas and hitchhikers waiting hours under the blazing Caribbean sun for a ride in their fuel-starved economy. That’s the Cuba Fidel built. He resigned last night.

I guess no one told Fidel you’re not supposed to break up over email. His email to Cuba’s state media last night announced that he would not seek or accept the presidency. It’s been a slow end for Fidel, who temporarily handed power over to his brother, 76-year-old Raúl Castro, in July 2006 after undergoing intestinal surgery. Although everyone in the government insists that they never make a move without consulting Fidel, he hasn’t been seen in public since he took ill.

He couldn’t have waited much longer to resign. The National Assembly is meeting Sunday to choose the head of the Council of State, a post synonymous with President. Last month, Fidel was re-elected to the National Assembly, as always, by his constituents in Santiago de Cuba. Every five years since 1976, the Assembly has then elected Fidel to be the head of the Council of State (from the triumph of the revolution in 1959 until 1976, when he disposed with the puppet presidents, Fidel served as Prime Minister).

Without Fidel’s blessing, the National Assembly never would have turned him down for President, even though he hasn’t left his sickbed in 19 months. Raúl’s presidency has been understated and restrained, making no big policy changes (though the buzz is that he’s ready to allow for some market reforms and even some political freedoms that Fidel put the kibosh on.)

When I lived in Cuba, the talk was always about what would happen when Fidel died – no one ever talked about what would happen if he just slowly disappeared, first taking ill, then finally resigning, but always casting his long shadow over Cuban politics. And indeed, the earth-shattering disruption we nervously awaited hasn’t happened. There will be no decisive moment when the country is thrown into chaos and the old storm-troopers from Miami come parachuting in to take their haciendas back. The transition has gone smoothly. Fidel is quietly going to sleep. The country is continuing as it has. With any luck, there will be changes – Cubans have been waiting decades for a raise – but not chaos.

I hope the lip-service that high government officials give to Fidel will dwindle as well. The Cuban people deserve to know that they can survive without Fidel. He is the father of the Revolution and is the only President the majority of Cubans have ever known, but there is life after Fidel. Not with Fidel unseen but giving orders, not with Fidel lurking in the shadows making all the calls. Cuba has waited almost fifty years to see what comes next.

–Tanya Snyder

No good deed goes unpunished, but that’s not the worst of it—the people who set Operation Filmmaker in motion escaped after a few months, while director Nina Davenport was entwined for three years. It all began when Liev Schreiber spotted Iraqi film student Muthana Mohmed on an MTV reality show, rhapsodizing about Angelina Jolie. Schreiber invited Mohmed to Prague as an intern on the set of Everything Is Illuminated, his directorial debut. Mohmed proved too proud, or too lazy, to be a good production assistant, and Schreiber and producer Peter Saraf ultimately stopped trying to help him. But Davenport, who’d been enlisted to document the internship, continued filming as Mohmed fought to avoid returning to Baghdad and begged everyone in sight for money or aid. Davenport’s and Mohmed’s messy relationship ultimately became the subject of this fascinating film, a character study that abandons all pretense of documentary objectivity. The film shows at 8 p.m. at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Ring Auditorium, 7th St. & Independence Ave. SW. Free. (202) 633-1000. —Mark Jenkins

For a guy who is a nonprofit environmental education organization founder, United Nations Environment Programme goodwill ambassador, and a former analyst for the U.S. Coast Guard Oil Pollution Act, John Francis spent a good amount of his earlier years keeping his mouth shut. Prior to racking up that list of achievements, a younger Francis decided in 1973 that the best way to promote social change was to, uh, take a 17-year-long vow of silence and walk across America. It wasn’t until Earth Day 1990 that Francis spoke again—and, by that time, he had plenty to say, much of which he detailed in his 2005 memoir, Planetwalker: How to Change Your World One Step at a Time. Part road trip, part meditative journey, Francis’ book is as inspirational as it is enlightening; along the way, he earned a Ph.D. in land management, looked down the barrel of a racist deputy sheriff’s gun, and silently contemplated issues of environmentalism and world peace—all of which would provide him with more than enough material with which to talk the talk once he had finished walking the walk. Francis discusses and signs copies of his work at 7:30 p.m. at National Geographic Museum at Explorers Hall, Grosvenor Auditorium, 1600 M St. NW. $18. (202) 857-7700. —Matthew Borlik

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club had been exploring the rootsier sides of Americana for a decade by the time Wire critic David Keenan dreamed up the “New Weird America” moniker. Yet to date, the country and gospel outfit’s most ringing endorsement continues to be that of aging gadfly (and fellow Colorado native) Jello Biafra, who signed the band to his Alternative Tentacles label in 2000. Biafra’s nod isn’t that surprising, seeing as how SCAC’s backwater anthems embody both punk sensibilities and snake-handling weirdness. Indeed, with their glasses, banjos, and graying beards, Slim, sidekick Jay Munly, and the rest of the good ol’ boys could pass for a gaggle of greasy outlaws who brew moonshine in mountain trailers. That may not be enough to land the band a music-nerd buzzword of their own, but maybe authenticity is its own reward. Slim Cessna’s Auto Club performs with the Cassettes at 8:30 p.m. at DC9, 1940 9th St. NW. $10. (202) 483-5000. —Maggie Serota