Late last year the DC Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC) responded to the requests of ANC Commissioners, neighbors, MPD, Business Improvement Districts and others by adopting emergency rules and proposing permanent rulemaking on pub/bar crawls. A pub crawl is when a group of establishments organizes together to promote an event where ticketed customers go from place-to-place in a certain time. There are usually drink specials and a theme around a holiday, like Valentine’s Day, New Year’s, or Halloween.
Pub crawls are common around our neighborhood and can draw thousands of people to the area at once. The area south and west of Dupont Circle sees the most pub crawls, but they are becoming more commonplace on 14th Street. Generally, after these crawls the streets around the participating establishments are littered with trash and there is nobody held responsible for cleaning up. With thousands of people on the sidewalks and streets at once, there is also no coordinated public safety effort like there would be with any other event.
The ABC Board’s proposed regulations are actually very good; they require pub crawl promoters to be registered and to plan for the public safety of their participants and the clean-up of the neighborhood. These promoters charge anywhere from $10 to $40 for a ticket to a pub crawl and have almost no overhead besides a website. They need to take responsibility for leaving our neighborhoods in the same or better shape as they found them.
I will introduce a motion this Wednesday for ANC 2B to support the regulations with a few modifications, such as that the Board should not approve more than one pub crawl in the same place at the same time. Please take a look at the regulations and let me know what you think!
Pub crawls are common around our neighborhood and can draw thousands of people to the area at once. The area south and west of Dupont Circle sees the most pub crawls, but they are becoming more commonplace on 14th Street. Generally, after these crawls the streets around the participating establishments are littered with trash and there is nobody held responsible for cleaning up. With thousands of people on the sidewalks and streets at once, there is also no coordinated public safety effort like there would be with any other event.
The ABC Board’s proposed regulations are actually very good; they require pub crawl promoters to be registered and to plan for the public safety of their participants and the clean-up of the neighborhood. These promoters charge anywhere from $10 to $40 for a ticket to a pub crawl and have almost no overhead besides a website. They need to take responsibility for leaving our neighborhoods in the same or better shape as they found them.
I will introduce a motion this Wednesday for ANC 2B to support the regulations with a few modifications, such as that the Board should not approve more than one pub crawl in the same place at the same time. Please take a look at the regulations and let me know what you think!
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