Results tagged “dcra”

View Approved DC Fireworks Stands 2009 in a larger map

"Over the past six months we have filtered out those businesses that want to be good neighbors and those that did not wish to operate legitimate businesses," Fenty said today.

Looks like month-long art show Artomatic is having some issues with city inspectors lately -- on Wednesday, organizers sent out an email saying "based on a routine building inspection by D.C.'s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs" they would be closing at 8 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday of this week instead of the usual 10 p.m. time. They explained in the release that "DCRA has limited this week's evening hours to give Artomatic extra time to install required lighting necessary for safety in the unlikely event of an emergency."

The Washington Examiner has an interesting report on the legality of billboards in the District. Interesting, in that no one seems to know whether any of them are legal or not. D.C. put a moratorium on new billboards in 1931, grandfathering in existing signs and preventing replacement if they were taken down, but around 1972, someone stopped updating the list of legal billboards. The Dept. of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has now started an investigation into signs around the city and promises removal of any that are illegally placed. If you suspect you've found an improperly hanging billboard, contact DCRA (including any info and photos you have) at signs.dcra[at]dc.gov.

You may already be following the story of the Capital City Diner, a new restaurant planned by Trinidad resident Matt Ashburn (City Paper wrote about it yesterday). Ashburn and his partner, Patrick Carl, bought a Silk City Diner, one of those original 1940s era sleek modular diner buildings, in upstate New York and planned to install it on the site of one of the former used car lots shut recently shut down by Mayor Fenty. Great idea, right? We were definitely intrigued by the news, and had already set up a time for a photographer to go down there this weekend to check the place out.

DC Metrocentric and others wrote in about the new billboard erected by artist Yoko Ono at 6th and K Streets NW. Yoko's no stranger to the District Of. In 2007, the artist participated in Street Scenes: Projects for D.C. at several different venues. Yoko imagined peace at the Verizon Center, planted ten wish trees around town, and delivered a (shall we say) interesting lecture in Anacostia. Yoko's was recently featured as a part of "Close Encounters at the Katzen Art Center of the American University Museum. And perhaps you've run across her work in a recent copy of the New York Times.

Yesterday Mayor Fenty announced a new Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs program that will put all 4,800 apartment buildings in the District on a mandatory four-year inspection cycle (two years if inspectors find substantial code violations). Before now, DCRA inspections only occurred after tenants reported problems. The program is being touted as a more proactive way to protect residents, particularly low income ones, from slumlords. (Check out Hamil Harris's story in the Post for an amusing anecdote from the presser, which took place at a Southeast apartment building that Fenty was holding up as an inspection success story. Harris reports that city officials appeared "taken by surprise" by a group of residents who interrupted the mayor to point out existing code violations in the building.)

The Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs is officially launching a new blog next week associated with its Collegiate Off-Campus Housing Initiative, called ThisShouldBeIllegal.com. The basic idea of the web-based program, according to DCRA spokesperson Michael Rupert, is "to try and get college kids to make sure they are being rented to legally." Under D.C. law, your landlord is required to have a business license, and the process of obtaining one prompts an automatic safety inspection to check for things like working smoke detectors and fire exits.

Where: Tackle Box

One person out there was angry enough to pick up the phone—not to call the city or the gallery or the developer, but to alert the Humane Society to the fact that goldfish were trapped inside. The caller pleaded for intervention on behalf of the fish, which were swimming in wall-mounted half-globes backed with photos from various sites around the city.

An automotive showroom for the R.L. Taylor Motor Company, a restaurant supplies retailer under Adams-Burch, and a Pentecostal chapel with the Church of the Rapture—the building that occupies the southwest corner of 14th and T Streets NW has served many people in many ways. Its most recent and perhaps improbable career turn—as a guerrilla art space hidden in the heart of one of D.C.'s fastest-rising commercial corridors—came to a close on Saturday.