National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
District of Columbia Branch
1000 "U" Street, N.W., Suite #100
Washington, D.C. 20001
For Immediate Release: July 9, 1997
Contact: Mark Thompson (202) 217-9288
or Rick Rosendall (202) 667-5139
NAACP Task Force Slams Regulatory Harassment of Gay Businesses
In a three-page letter to Barry, task force facilitator Mark Thompson details the recent history of abuse by police, fire officials, and inspectors from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), including:
- disproportionate targeting of gay businesses;
- interference with HIV/AIDS education efforts;
- intimidation and attempted censorship;
- inadequate supervision of public safety and regulatory officers; and
- misguided priorities in the allocation of scarce District resources.
As a first step toward correcting the abuse, Thompson called on the Mayor to instruct DCRA chief Hampton Cross to call off a pending administrative hearing against the Crew Club, a gay men's health club near 14th and Rhode Island Avenue NW. After Barry received the letter from Thompson, the DCRA hearing was postponed from July 15 until September — only delaying a proper reckoning for the District's pattern of regulatory discrimination.
As Thompson wrote to the Mayor: "We cannot afford to divert precious time, money, and personnel to such regulatory harassment — particularly when real problems like unsafe streets, crack houses, unsafe drinking water and crumbling schools continue to plague our city."
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
District of Columbia Branch
1000 "U" Street, N.W., Suite #100
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202)319-9358 (voice)
(202)462-6115 (fax)
Tuesday, July 1, 1997
Mayor Marion Barry
Executive Office of the Mayor
One Judiciary Square
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Mayor Barry:
We are writing to express our concern about an ongoing campaign of regulatory abuse by multiple District agencies directed against the city's gay-owned and gay-oriented businesses, and to ask you to put an end to it. In a number of cases, police have stormed businesses in 1950s-style raids, operating on unfounded anonymous tips from area residents. They have often been accompanied by inspectors from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA). The disproportionate targeting of gay establishments has demonstrated a de facto anti-gay double standard, as well as a failure to establish sensible priorities for the use of scarce government resources during a fiscal crisis. As the first step toward correcting this, we ask that you instruct DCRA chief Hampton Cross to call off the July 15 administrative hearing against the Crew Club.
Allow us to provide some background:
- Fire Department inspectors improperly conducted a midnight raid on a November 1996 weekend that resulted in a temporary shutdown of the Crew Club, a health club catering to gay men, located near 14th & Rhode Island Avenue, NW. The only legitimate reason for the Department to be conducting late-night inspections is to check for overcrowding, which was not the reason for the shutdown imposed by the Department's investigators. Those responsible for this improper raid should have been disciplined and their behavior corrected; instead, Fire Marshal Alexander Bullock told GLAA that "Inspector Allan Lancaster acted within his authority" in conducting the raid.
- In an April 1997 raid on the Crew Club, assisted by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, DCRA housing inspector James Delgado charged the Crew Club with illegally operating a sexually oriented business. DCRA appears determined to treat as illicit the establishment's entirely admirable practice of distributing condoms and safe-sex literature, and to apply a standard against private changing rooms that it has not applied against comparable rooms at other health clubs such as the YMCA. Curiously, while the city has been harassing the Crew Club, drug dealers have continued their work in a nearby alley virtually unmolested.
- The DCRA and the MPD conducted an improper raid in November 1996 against Cusano's Meet Market, near 17th & Corcoran Streets, NW. (As with the Crew Club, no liquor license is involved here.) DCRA housing inspector James Delgado — the same official involved in the Crew Club case — accompanied by a Third District police officer, made an unannounced visit to search the premises for evidence in support of anonymous complaints of the sale of illicit erotic literature; no such evidence was found. As the May issue of InTowner reports, repeated city inspections have found no violations there. What has happened is that an honest businessman has been intimidated. In light of DCRA's inability to handle its normal responsibilities to the public health and safety due to its budget restrictions, this venture into intimidation and attempted censorship was all the more inexcusable.
- The harassment stepped up earlier this year with the formation by MPD Chief Larry Soulsby of a liquor task force composed of police officers and health- and fire-code inspectors. It would appear that in this case at least, the "Zero Tolerance" policy, intended to combat violence, has more often resulted in bar owners being cited for using extension cords and ordered to change the spot where their license is displayed. If, as it appears, the "Zero Tolerance" policy is directed against regulatory violations and not just criminal activity, there are surely a host of far more serious violations that ought to come first — such as the incompetence that led to the recent drowning of a child in a District swimming pool, after which Eyewitness News reported that a single D.C. inspector is responsible for 174 pools.
- Gay businesses have been disproportionately targeted. As Washington City Paper reported on April 18, "In the eight weeks since it assembled, the task force has raided nearly half the roughly 20 gay establishments in town." City Paper goes on to quote MPD Sgt. Ralph Wax admitting that the first places the task force hit were gay bars. " 'We went [to the gay clubs] at the insistence of the ABC Board,' says Wax. 'I don't recall any specific complaints.' "
In response to these and similar incidents, our colleagues in the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance ran an advertising campaign in April and May in several local newspapers protesting the city's discriminatory enforcement policies. This was followed by a post card campaign directed to you as Mayor. Since the ad and mail campaigns were launched — and as the Crew Club began organizing its own response — your staff in the Office of the Ombudsman have assured us that the matter has their attention and that they were attempting to arrange a meeting between you and representatives of the Gay and Lesbian Business Guild. Unfortunately, no such meeting has taken place, and no communication has been made to Mr. Cross at DCRA to call off the administrative hearing against the Crew Club, which is still scheduled for July 15. The city's campaign against the Crew Club, which has been a leader in HIV- and safe-sex education efforts by the local business community, has already had a chilling effect on such efforts.
The city's important regulatory duties are no excuse for harassing responsible, tax-generating businesses that serve the District's gay residents and visitors. Continued abuse can only be prevented by establishing clear guidelines and priorities for regulatory and enforcement personnel. As Mayor, it falls to you to get the organs of our government in line — in particular, to ensure that zealots like Mr. Delgado understand the principle of equal protection under the law.
We cannot afford to divert precious time, money, and personnel to such regulatory harassment — particularly when real problems like unsafe streets, crack houses, unsafe drinking water and crumbling schools continue to plague our city. Considering our city's dwindling tax base, we ought to be attracting more revenue-generating business to our city, not driving it away. We urge you to stop the pending DCRA action against the Crew Club, and to take the necessary steps to ensure that the District government corrects its priorities and provides proper supervision and guidance to its officers and investigators to ensure that they are truly carrying out the people's business and not their own private agendas.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We know that you share our concern for the safety and freedom of all of the District's residents, and we look forward to continue working with you toward that end.
Respectfully,
Mark Thompson,
Task Force Facilitator
cc: Larry Soulsby
Hampton Cross
John Hill
D.C. Councilmembers
D.C. Allen
