A small group of neighbors is pushing back against plans to nearly double the size of Hank’s Oyster Bar in Dupont Circle, calling the planned expansion a ploy to get around the area’s moratorium on liquor licenses.
Restaurant owner Jamie Leeds plans to buy the vacant commercial property at 17th and Q streets Northwest that separates Hank’s from the remaining block of row houses. According to a notice from the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, Hank’s would more than double its outdoor seating to fit 40 people and increase its indoor seating to 110 seats from 50.
Residents have filed several protests with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board this summer objecting to the expansion and the lack of timely notice from the board.
Dave Mallof, who is heading up the protest, said the expansion into the adjacent property would eliminate the residential buffer that now exists and it does not adhere to the spirit of the moratorium on liquor licenses in place along 17th Street. When Hank’s opened in 2005, it was granted a single license exemption from the moratorium.
The group of six residents says it also wasn’t told of the expansion on their block until nearly 60 days after Leeds’ petition was filed — and that was after reading about it in a local publication.
“In a larger sense, much of this is about the inadequacy and the insensitivity of the [liquor] board,” Mallof said.
But Leeds doesn’t see it that way, noting that other restaurants in the area had expanded without threat of violating the moratorium.
“This has nothing to do with the moratorium,” she said. “We’re packed during the weekend and people are standing out on the sidewalk. This will help all that congestion.”
On a busy weekend night, Hank’s can serve up to 350 customers, according to its floor manager Anne Hutchinson. She said wait times on those nights can be as long as one hour and 45 minutes.
Jack Jacobson, the area’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, called Hank’s a neighborhood “jewel” and said nearby residents were frequent patrons of the restaurant.
The residents’ protest hearing is scheduled to go before the beverage control board on Oct. 13.
“I’m very hopeful the board will allow the expansion … but anything can happen,” Jacobson said.
