The D.C. Council took on vices Tuesday, repealing what was the nation’s first law to allow Internet gambling and enacting a ban on new strip clubs in an area of Northeast that’s already home to four strip club licenses.
Both votes were decisive. The council unanimously approved a measure that placed a moratorium on strip clubs in Ward 5, which has also been targeted by would-be medical marijuana growers. The vote to repeal Internet gambling was 10-2.
In Northeast Washington, residents are concerned the area along Queens Chapel Road — home to four strip club licenses, five approved medical marijuana dispensaries and one distributor — will become the new red light district of D.C.
| Not dead yet |
| Councilman Michael Brown has previously said he plans to introduce a bill legalizing Internet gambling if a repeal was successful. On Tuesday, his staff said they have no deadline yet to introduce that legislation, but it could come this session. Councilman Marion Barry said he wants to co-sponsor the legislation. |
“We want to slow this down and close the exposure to the community,” said at-large Councilman Vincent Orange, a Ward 5 resident.
Though the area is not zoned for “sexually-oriented businesses,” the D.C. Zoning board approved the Stadium Club — which offers nude dancing — last year under the reasoning that pole dancing is also a form of physical fitness. It opened the door for other adult entertainment businesses to move in.
“We already have too many things in our ward,” said Naomi Boyg, a senior citizen who lives in the area. “We don’t want that.”
With the moratorium, the three strip clubs that were displaced after Nationals Park was built will have to look elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the council’s decisive repeal of Internet gambling cast doubt over proponent Councilman Michael Brown‘s chances of success in a second push for legalization. Brown, an at-large member, and Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry were the lone votes against repeal.
Although the discussion on the dais was subdued, the outrage over the initial legalization of Internet gambling led to a shouting match between Brown and at-large Councilman David Catania at the council’s breakfast meeting before the vote.
When Brown announced he wanted to introduce an amendment that would keep online gambling in place but transfer power over it to the council, Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans told Brown he was “really holding on” to the idea and Catania called the amendment the “biggest piece of garbage” he’d ever seen.
That set off a shouting match in which Catania accused Brown of being “obsessed with iGaming” and Brown said Catania wasn’t in touch with the will of the people.
The controversy over Internet gambling stems from the way in which it was passed last year — as a budget amendment Brown tacked on in December 2010, a few weeks before the council passed a supplemental budget measure. A provision for “nontraditional games” was included in the lottery contract approved by council in 2009, then later specified to include iGaming.
Council members later said they were unaware of either.
The repeal will cost the city an estimated $13.1 million in projected revenue through 2015.
