mount pleasant neighborhood alliance

Contrary to the opinion of our ANC, there is overwhelming public support in Mount Pleasant for Bill B17-0903 prohibiting the sale of single containers of alcohol, and the community thanks Council Member Graham who has supported our efforts on this issue over the past 8 years.  ANC 1D is free to disagree; however, it is the minority.  Jack McKay said the ANC's reasons for wanting Mount Pleasant to be excluded from the ban are because:
 
(1) such single sales bans do not mitigate the problem of public drinking, but merely persuade abusers to take their behavior to nearby neighborhoods. 
 
First, the moratorium reduced the problem of public drinking in Mt. Pleasant dramatically. Second, the Mt. Pleasant ANC has opinions but no evidence denoting any increase that abusers have taken their behavior to nearby neighborhoods. In fact, neither the Adams Morgan nor the Columbia Heights ANC s has seen the need for a single sales moratorium.  And third, single sale moratoriums were never intended to cure alcoholism-they were intended to reduce public drinking.  It is very important to keep these two issues separate.  There is probably nobody in Mount Pleasant who is not grateful for the services of Neighbors Consejo, an organization that was founded specifically to address the social and psychological effects of alcohol on alcohol abusers in our community and to provide them assistance to break their dependency.  Neighbors Consejo continues to do an admirable job, even as it faces cuts in funding.
 
(2) a legal ban would prevent any trial suspension of the existing ban to find out if it is today really beneficial.  

A Mt. Pleasant resident posted this response to the ANC's position on the community discussion forum:  "I don't know that we rank and file residents benefit from bringing back public drunkenness based on a theory of social justice. Is MtP to suffer in a form of protest? Until the problems of homelessness and substance abuse are addressed in a meaningful way by the city, we will bear our brunt of it?"  None of our ANC commissioners are substance abuse professionals, but they adamantly state that the single sale moratorium merely pushes the behavior to nearby neighborhoods.  Just what benefits would they like Mount Pleasant to reap by recreating the environment that would bring alcohol abuse and public drinking back to our streets?
 
(3) a recent George Washington University statistical analysis of alcohol-related calls for police service before and after the imposition of the singles ban in Ward Four showed no decrease due to the ban.

This is not true for Mt. Pleasant. Our calls for service in 2000 went from ~1,500 calls to 650 calls for service in 2008. Our community experienced visual improvements; the support of business owners who used to sell singles; and enhanced economic investment after the ban went into effect. More importantly, no one went out of business from not selling singles. 
 
Rather than antagonize its constituents at every turn, ANC 1D should become partners  and sponsor the positive efforts of Neighbors Consejo and its Director, Alfredo Enriquez-Morales, who is making a difference in the Mount Pleasant community, providing the exact services the ANC suggests are lacking. 
 
While it is true that ANCs' positions are given "great weight," they are merely advisory in nature.  ANC 1D does not offer persuasive evidence or any rationale that would, under the circumstances, compel the removal of the language that relates to the Mount Pleasant ban from Bill B17-0903.