The House Strip Club and E.L. Haynes Public Charter School
The E.L. Haynes Public Charter School at 3600 Georgia Avenue NW, currently serves Pre-K to 5th grade students in the Petworth neighborhood. They hope to add a grade each year until they are serving students through grade twelve.
From this angle, you can see their new five-story school soaring over the existing Georgia Avenue businesses. You may also see a slight problem with the school. Its soaring over not-so-school-friendly local businesses like The House strip club and too many liquor stores.
You can also expect to see a dispute or two soon enough with horny teenagers looking to sneak a peek, or at least a sip of the adult-only entertainment that surrounds the school. Who do you think will win? Businesses that have been on the block for decades, or protective parents trying to keep innocence from being lost?
In the battle that everyone knows will soon come despite rumored promises of neutrality by the school, I’ll be betting on the parents, especially now that I have a prospective student on the way.
Kids beat tits every day of the week.
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Ooooo. I don’t know about your last statement.
NIMBY extended to new structures? We just built a school, so now we want things OUT of our backyards? Is there an acronym for that?
Jonathan,
That’s what I’m wondering about: Post-NIMBYism. I’ve heard that the school was well warned before hand not to mess with existing businesses, and they promised to be neutral in any neighbourhood activities around zoning.
But how long do you think it is before a concerned parent takes up the cause, regardless of the school’s neutrality?
Certainly parents will try to cause problems for these local businesses, which is a shame. Presumably they knew [or should have known] the school was next to a titty bar when they sent their kids there. What kind of legal standing would they have in challenging the bar’s liquor license? I guess some parents might live in the ANC. But still, if you don’t want your kid being schooled next door to a titty bar, don’t send them to that school. It’s not the bar’s fault you sat down in their backyard.
I wonder what the school people were thinking when they chose to locate themselves there.
BUT, on to my real comment: I love the sign on the nudie bar that advertises Redskins games on the big screen TV. I realize that strip clubs exist for the sole purpose of selling drinks to persons of the masculine demographic, but it occurs to me that if your patrons are looking at the big screen rather than the Real Live Boobies, your dancers are DOIN IT WRONG.
Or is there some other reason? Perhaps in DC it’s illegal to dance naked on a Sunday?
I predict my least favorite battle call will be used in the impending war against these businesses… “It’s for the children” Both the Left and the Right use this to further whichever campaign/cause they are pushing.
“Kids beat tits every day of the week.”
Ahhhhhyyyy don’t know about that ; )
I don’t have any kids on the way there, but could eventually. If I did, I wouldn’t want to pick that battle. My parents framed things like stip clubs as “bad” and it kind of warped my perception of sex for a while. I say educate the kids early and let them make their own decisions.
There is a moratorium on new strip club licenses in DC, and there are (as the displaced license-holders from the area around the new Nats Park have discovered) literally no places left in the District that meet the zoning requirements to put a strip club should an existing club need to move. All existing clubs are grandfathered at their current locations, and cannot move – forcing them to move is tantamount to driving them permanently out of business.
Regardless of your personal views on strip clubs, they are indisputably providing wanted services to the community. Building a school next to existing business and then forcing the owners out of business is NIMBY-ism at its finest. You can put a school just about anywhere in the District. You literally cannot put a strip club *anywhere*.
So yeah (and I say this as a parent) if any parents have a problem with the proximity of this school to the House, you can either 1) put your child into a different school or 2) work with the school to find a new location.
When a school relocated near us (using the beauty of matter-of-right zoning), one parent pointed out that there was a registered sex offender in one of the neighboring homes. Did the school moving there mean that person had to move away, because of the laws about proximity? at the time no one could answer that. Like the strip club, there are few who would try to protect sex offender rights, but among the things the fellow is guilty of, living near a school wasn’t one until the school moved to him. So does he have to flee in the wake of the new school (and there are few enough locations legal for offenders to live in)?
Again, if we permit strip clubs (which as noted serve a purpose if not one appreciated by all) and we allow sex offenders to try and be members of society (with heavy burdens on them, understandably), but where is the line drawn where it is an unfair burden? It’s in interesting academic question, even if I have a hard time feeling terribly protective of either population.
For the strip club: I’d consider it a teaching opportunity instead of a threat. and for my situation, I’m grateful to know about the neighbor, who has never been seen on the street or anywhere nearby in person.
Life anywhere is about navigating the murky waters.