Pizza parlors targeted in crime crackdown
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
May 26, 2009
D.C. Councilman Jim Graham says he has found the culprit behind D.C.’s persistent crime problems: pizza.
The former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren says pizza parlors in the hip Adams Morgan neighborhood are becoming breeding grounds for mischief because they stay open too late. He’s drafting legislation that will crack down on the walk-off eateries.
“Behaving the way they do in terms of music, in terms of letting people hang out and also in terms of tolerating a certain level of violence,” the Ward 1 Democrat listed among his concerns to WJLA-TV in an interview.
Adams Morgan, which Graham represents, is one of D.C.’s few night spots, but drunken brawls there are common. The pizza shops do a brisk trade in the late-night hours, after pubs and bars close down for the evening.
D.C. has seen back-to-back increases in homicides for the first time since 1989-91.
