A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.

The Adams Morgan Bogeyman Succeeded: Unsurprisingly, ANC 2B voted against the liquor license application for a restaurant in the old post office building on 14th and T streets NW. Borderstan reports that a large mix of supporters and opponents turned out to the meeting, and that “the now famous fliers distributed on Tuesday — warning that T Street was going to become like Adams Morgan — were the work of the partner of the ANC Commissioner for Single Member District 2B09, Ramon Estrada. Roughly half the attendees left the meeting room after the presentation.” One ANC 2B  commissioner comments on the post, writing “As one of the Commissioners that voted to support the protest, I appreciate this fair write up of the meeting last night. My vote was not because I object to this project; I think it is a great opportunity and will ultimately be successful. Rather, because of the location next to an apartment building. These residents deserve an opportunity to have issues such as noise and parking address. The VA process will allow this. The application actually does a great job adhering to our new public space guidelines, so that will likely not be controversial.”

If You Can’t Run With the Big Dogs: Penn Quarter Living writes about the challenges of small gun owners in D.C. (who go elsewhere—to Virginia—to play with their toys): “We know we’re in the minority as a shooter with our one complaint about these ranges, but here it goes:  as a person shooting a 22 rifle it can be a little distracting to stand next to people firing 50 caliber BMG’s, shotguns, and other high powered firearms.  We’re not suggesting these popular guns shouldn’t be allowed, but do wish there were a better way of assigning booths by caliber of firearm, rather than the seemingly random way they do now.  You can come out of the ranges feeling shell shocked after standing next to a shooter packing the same firepower as your average Call of Duty character.” One commenter continues the gun chat, writing “Anything higher and a 22 is just friggin loud. Regarding carry across lines, as I remember, your purpose has to be for legit reasons like practice or sport. And logically it has to be unloaded, but if you took a DC approved firearms class this would have been covered. Other places don’t have the same hangups as DC does about guns, so the MD friends who introduced us to shooting, while we were vacationing in VA, had us drive over to WV to a free range. That’s about 3 states there. Anyway, when we got to the open air range in WV there was a guy there with a banana clipped gun and a pistol. Whenever he shot off that AK-47 looking thing I ducked, even though I was behind him. Scary, friggin, loud. Then I was given ear protection and all was well.”

Performing for Parking: In response to a Greater Greater Washington post about performance parking and Circulator fares proposed by Councilmember Tommy Wells, his constituents in ANC 6A are highly supportive—and have a few more suggestions to add. On the ANC’s email list, one member writes, “I would also like to see something done to residents that have 2, 3 and 4 vehicles and trying to park them all on the same one-way street taking parking spaces from other residents. You can only drive 1 vehicle at a time so they shouldn’t be allowed to park all of them on their street. Also, something needs to be done with the folks who doesn’t have a residential parking sticker or a visitor parking pass and on the 1500 Block of Queen Street NE, more people are parking and leaving their vehicles because they know they are not getting a ticket.” Another adds, “The 2001 H Street Strategic Neighborhood Action Plan group was the first in the city to suggest graduated rates for parking permit fees. Since the spaces are worth a couple thousand dollars/year, it seems reasonable to charge more.  Toronto charges from $18-$50/month + tax. I’ve been writing about this for 5-6 years. This is one of the many subsidies of automobile use that most motor vehicle owners take for granted and believe is an entitlement—and then turn around and complain about ‘subsidies’ to transit and other forms of mobility.”

No Longer Angry Birds: One member of the Brookland email list inquires, “Over the past week we have found several dead birds in our yard. Is anyone else encountering an excessive amount of dead birds?” They’re not alone: Another adds, “I have recently seen a few dead birds around the neighborhood lately. Hopefully 5 years from now we won’t find out that the air and water that we (along with the birds) breathe and drink is actually poisonous and toxic, not sure if you remember last year when hundreds of dead birds were found out West somewhere. The issue certainly deserves some research.”