Several years ago, I put your newspaper down and vowed never to read it again until your staff committed itself to fair, unbiased, and accurate reporting. After three years of being Washington City Paper-free, I decided to give the City Paper another try—just to see if things had changed. Not to my surprise, it had not.

How unfortunate it is that your staff allowed such garbage to be written about Diversite (Loose Lips, 7/16), whose owners have done nothing but been decent, law-abiding, and productive members of our community. Like others, I have visited Diversite numerous times (days and nights, weekdays and weekends) and have also taken friends and family there for enjoyable evenings. When I read the unjustified accusations regarding the establishment, I could only wonder to what Diversite your paper and its staff could have been referring?

Contrary to the writings of a Deborah Martens (The Mail, 8/6) and others whose letters the City Paper has printed, Diversite is, and always has been, a very decent, enjoyable, and respectable business whose patrons are respectful of the environment. How incredibly misleading that Martens writes that the owners of the club filed a report with the police on March 13, 1999, supposedly claiming destruction of property by a patron who subsequently was removed from the club. What would she have the owners do, not report the incident? This gives business owners little incentive, as the owners of Diversite did, to do the right thing.

As opposed to your paper’s jumping on the bandwagon of those who clearly have an agenda in seeing to the closing of Diversite, your staff should have been investigating who stands to benefit from this club’s closing and the issue of race (specifically, why whites feel so threatened by an establishment that caters to blacks and Latinos, and why white business owners, who have been salivating for years over the possibility of acquiring the building, cannot accept the fact that the owners of Diversite are successful minorities who refuse to sell). These are the real issues your paper should focus on—unless, of course, the City Paper and its staff have a hidden agenda, as well.

In my considered opinion, your paper has hit yet another low. Little, if anything, has changed in your reporting since the last time I read the City Paper. Your staff still engages in relaying nothing but hearsay and unsubstantiated “facts” from questionable people who clearly have private agendas and personal vendettas. Surely you can demand more from yourselves.

Dupont Circle

via the Internet