More Business by Petition in Bloomingdale
Anything but a dry cleaner! (Lydia DePillis)
ANC 5C Commissioner John Salatti is circulating a petition in a last-ditch effort to convince Yong Choe, who bought the corner building at 1821 1st Street last October, to turn it into anything other than a dry cleaners (since there's another dry cleaners just a hop skip away). It reads:
Although we definitely appreciate the owners’ efforts to rehabilitate a long-vacant building and put it back into useful service, we do not support the opening of a second dry cleaning establishment. This area needs a variety of services that we do not have currently and which we as neighbors would support heartily. These services include sit-down, full-service restaurants, boutiques, stationery and card stores, consignment shops, electronics stores, child-care centers, hardware stores, bakeries, delicatessens, diners, pet grooming establishment, vet clinic, bank, etc. These are businesses that we want, that we need, and that we will patronize. We are not likely to patronize another dry cleaning establishment.
The effort, now at 75 signatories, may be too late–all the construction permits had been issued by April, and construction is already well advanced on the cheery lavender-painted building. There's always boycotts, though.
10:02 am
I believe Standard Operating Procedure when asking someone to drastically alter their business plans is to offer money and investment. Typical elites, thinking everything is a simple matter of choice. Yong Choe is probably not spending his/her parents money, or government subsidies, on this place, but rather money that's been earned. Good luck on the laundromat, may it provide a return on investment.
11:07 am
I doubt it will provide anything. There's already a good dry cleaners about 500' away. Yong Choe would stand a much better chance of making money if he provided the neighborhood with something they actually want and need, whcih right now is just about anything other than a bodega or a dry cleaners.
11:13 am
whilst i may agree with most of Manor's sentiment, any phrase of the form "typical ____" when deriding someone's actions just makes me what to punch their smug little face.
metaphorically. of course.
2:15 pm
The irony is, this isn't even Salatti's SMD. He needs show money or piss off. Same for everyone else that signed that petition. I'm just glad it's not a carryout or a liquor store, or a crumbling vacant 'hardware' store. For just being a drycleaner, they put a lot more effort into that making the building look nice that I would have expected.
Honestly, if you want to get worked up, take on Brian Brown and the firehouse, Douglas and his properties, SOME busing homeless to their kitchen every day, still vacant Baraki up the street, the vacant yellow building across the street, Sunset Liquor and the stumbling/pissing drunks rolling across 1st st.
Best of luck to him, I don't use a dry cleaning service, but if I need to, Yong Choe's first on my list (mainly for being closest).
3:59 pm
"Full service restaurant" but god forbid they need a liquor license to make a profit - those yuppies and their wine drinking are only a step away from Jo Jo the drunken hobo rolling around in the alleway and talking to himself at 3 am.
4:56 pm
Mr. Salatti has compiled an extensive list of the businesses his neighborhood "needs." He and the people who sign his petition should take their own advice and go out and invest their own money to open one of these businesses, as opposed to trying to tell someone else how and where to invest their money.
8:32 pm
lydia, in your title you suggest that there is more than one business by petition. what do you refer to?
6:40 am
C,
Sorry for implying something without being clear--I was thinking of the Big Bear's petition in favor of its liquor license application. Not the same thing, to be sure, but that's the reference.
thanks,
Lydia
5:48 pm
Salatti, FUCK OFF!
7:56 pm
lydia,
whew!
i was worried other weird things were up in the hood.
thanks!
11:33 pm
Have you been to the other dry cleaner? It's a plant that's using perchlorates (perc) on your clothes. The owner of that shop is very nice and I wouldn't be surprised if she was Yong Choe and wanted a place down the street that could be a proper tailoring shop. It's a mess to try and bring your clothes into that place if there are other patrons. You do a little dance trying not to run into each other in their tiny front entrance. I take my suits to my old dry cleaner in Arlington to be tailored rather than go in there.
BTW, it takes about $25-50K to open a dry cleaner, depending on getting used equipment. Asking them to take their cash and open something else means asking them to take an even larger risk with their money. Dry cleaners are reasonably profitable businesses when you run them yourself.
If all these petitioners are willing to lose their shirt on a business in DC, then why the heck don't they take over the spot and open something else?
Let me give you an alternative scenario: Doing up a restaurant interior can cost upwards of $75K and usually more because you have to add all kinds of HVAC work & fire safety stuff which a dry cleaning drop shop certainly does not have to have. You have a highly perishable product AND you have to get a liquor license to make any kind of money.
I will gladly go the extra two blocks to the new shop so I can stay out of a perchlorate filled plant and get my clothes tailored closer to home. Good for them for taking some risks and opening something, anything. Why are these people complaining? They can move somewhere else or open a business and be quiet.
4:58 pm
Good for you all to noticed that Mr. Salatti has once again stepped out side his SMD! Frankly it's a damn shame, he has attempted to pressure Mr. Choe into not opening. He wasn't appointed by the chair to step in for the other ANC commissioner but still took it upon himself to step out of his SMD. This isn't the first time he has or has been spoken to for doing so. This petition is anti-business and sends the wrong message for Bloomingdale to investors.
Do you really want him to represent you? I mean here he got involved in BBC issues and that ended in disaster, because he's a bullshitter. BBC had all kinds of violations in zoning, occupancy, etc. As Commissioner Salatti is an attorney, you think he would have researched this a bit more and had the facts! I sure wouldn't hire him to help me fight my out of a wet paper bag! But instead he loves to stick his nose in other commissioners SMD's and start up issues as if he's the expert on everything. Frankly, their are more lawyers in this town than sliced white bread, at least the you can eat the bread!
I think Mr. Choe ought to sue him for causing undue stress and attempting to limit business operations in a commercial zone. Mr. Choe is investing in this neighborhood into a business no matter that it is a dry cleaning business. Competition is good for business the last time I was in business school and I don't think that has changed! Hopefully he will bring lower prices and a cleaner store front to the area.
Once again Mr. Salatti(with his huge yard signs running for ANC, you'd think his was running for mayor) has ambitions far beyond any resonable expectations that he could possibly attain in this city. It's time to send a clear message...put an end to this madness. Let him know and make him realize, "Stick to your own hood or get voted out!"
11:40 am
barrie,
insulting and being rude to your fellow reps and neighbors is low class.