ThayerAvenue.com

A “Two-Concept Spot”
In Washington Post restaurant news, Gillian Clark’s excellent establishment in DC, Colorado Kitchen, will be shuttering its doors. While sad, she says she is now going to focus her efforts on opening a “two-concept spot in Silver Spring.” From the article:

The upstairs will be a casual dining and carryout called The General Store, while the downstairs will be a bar and restaurant called the Post Office Tavern. Though there will be more space, Clark said that the food will be much simpler than it is at Colorado Kitchen. For example, she’s currently designing an all-waffle brunch that will include items such as a savory corn-flour waffle with herbs and seafood and an eggs Benedict waffle. On Sunday evenings, there will be one menu item — something like pot roast or fried chicken– served family-style.

I certainly like the concept(s). Questions, though: Where will the aforementioned establishment be? When will it open? (Anything more specific than “in the fall?”)

All About the Money
Live Nation will be getting close to $800,000 in tax breaks over the next 10 years. Big whoop. Anticipated revenue for the county during that time is close to $11 million. And the Lees get all the options they want for surrounding development in exchange for donating the property. When does the digging begin?

And in other money news, both the Silver Spring Transit Center and the Silver Spring Civic Center don’t have enough of it. Go figure.

Silk Purse out of a Sow’s Ear
There’s been a lot of buzz about upgrades and improvements planned for the Silver Spring Giant at The Blairs. It would appear that Royal Aholes Ahold, the parent company, finally started listening to all the bitching and moaning about the general crappiness of the facilities there and the (albeit minor) threat of another grocery store in the area. I still want my Harris Teeter.

And since some people don’t seem to understand what’s wrong with the Giant (and yes, the Thayer Safeway *is* worse), I’m thinking of doing a video blog with a camera in the store to highlight all of its shortcomings. Hoping it won’t be another Chip Py incident.

Don’t Tase Me, Bro!
According to yesterday’s Delaware Coast Press: “Montgomery County Police say a Silver Spring man had to be subdued by Taser after he stabbed his roommate, himself and threatened officers with a knife.”

The incident happened in the 1000 block of Ruatan Street. For those of you not familiar with that street, I’ll give you three guesses as to the area of Silver Spring we’re talking about. The first two don’t count.

At approximately 6:35 pm, notice went out on the listserv that the infamous dog of Thursday night’s post was on the loose. Again. But thanks to the proprietor of a one-on-one dog training service and her expert (non-eyewitness) opinion, we can rest assured that the dog is not vicious. Again, from the listserv:

…The big point to take home here is that *despite* the fact that you were whaling on him and taking something he considered his out of his mouth *he did not bite you.* He’s a big dog, he could have easily overpowered you, and he didn’t.

This is evidence that he’s not vicious.

He is clearly dangerous to small animals, but if he were dangerous to humans in an ordinary situation he’d have surely chomped on you in this one. I’m really coming down on this point because it will really help everyone to just keep to the facts, which, bad as they are, don’t seem to suggest a menace to humans out on the street in the neighborhood.

Keen insight, no? Not vicious, but dangerous to small animals. Sounds to me like natural selection. You know what else sounds like natural selection? Whaling on a dog that’s attacking an innocent cat. Oh, wait – the cat could have been teasing the dog, in which case the cat deserved it. Forgot about that one. And how dare someone snatch what the dog thought was his out of the jaws of victory.

Lock up the kitties and bust out a couple thousand CCs of thorazine for the tranqulizer gun.

NOTE: As of yesterday, the cat was injured and moving very slowly but alive and eating. Hope that continues.

I love the East Silver Spring listserv. Sometimes it’s because I can hop on there and get a bunch of people riled up about a grocery store. In this case, I am but an innocent bystander.

Word first broke out today at 17:32 that a dangerous dog was out and about attacking smaller housepets. Let’s start from the beginning (names removed to protect the innocent):

Just a few minutes ago about 5:15 pm June 19th, a mixed breed boxer-like dog with yellowish brown fur and darker spots attacked my 10 year old cat in my enclosed backyard. The dog must have come up the driveway. When we heard the commotion, my friend was first on the scene and the dog came after him. Fortunately there was a mop nearby and he was able to beat the dog off. The dog did not seem to be wearing a collar.

Do not approach a dog of this description. He was last seen leaving Silver Spring Ave. headed down Nolte Av. toward Thayer Ave. (500 block).

Coming to Thayer Avenue? Flippin’ sweet. I have a small child and a cat (though which is which might be up for debate). I’d be concerned about having my child outside and the potential for attack as much as anyone else. Sure. I’ll keep my eyes peeled. (The dog you see here does not match the description, but I thought it looked mean and I liked it better for the purposes of exaggeration herein.)

But wait! Not a group to remain quiet, the pro-dog lobby comes in to defend the beast. A short time later came a reply with the words “calm please” in the subject line:

For heavens sake, attacking people? Vicious? Beating it with a stick?? Which came first I wonder. Please be reasoned when describing these interactions… The more agitated the people get the more agitated the dog will be.

I begin to realize this could get interesting. Not like the Sharks and the Jets, mind you, but entertaining nonetheless. Animal Control was called, and through a series of updates, we find out that they can’t come out until tomorrow. X-Files episode potential? Maybe with some Mark Brothers thrown in, but not so much. A few emails later, this comes along:

This dog came into my backyard and attacked my old cat who was sitting on the back steps. No dogs should be running loose and there is only one access to my backyard and that is the driveway. The dog grabbed my cat in his mouth and was shaking her when my friend got out there and beat him off of the cat.

Later on when my friend went down to Thayer Av. to get the address where this dog is normally chained up, he met a woman on Silver Spring Av. who said that the dog had attacked her.

Marx Brothers, indeed. So we have someone sending out warnings about a potentially vicious dog attacking small animals and people with sticks. Check. Dog lovers saying don’t jump to conclusions and – for the love of all that is good and holy – remain calm. Double check. Now the latest chapter tells us that the entire incident might actually be the fault of the old cat sitting outside. Or the poor sap trying to defend the feline. And we all need good fences. To wit, another email:

A majority of dogs who see small furry creatures as prey will not harm a human. The neighbor was essentially “competing” for your poor cat, so the dog felt threatened with the loss of a valuable resource. Unless your neighbor was badly hurt also, the dog shouldn’t be assumed to be “vicious,” however. Assume that the dog did exactly what he intended to do to the person, so if the person isn’t hospitalized at the moment, the dog is probably not aggressive toward humans–unprovoked. In other words, he’d have really hurt your neighbor if he wanted to.

No dog should be permitted to charge around the neighborhood making trouble. The same logic should be applied to cats, however, as they, left outdoors to their own devices will essentially tease dogs by cruising their territory. A dog on a chain whose yard has been essentially “trespassed” by wandering cats will very likely want to read the riot act to *any other* cat if then given the opportunity.

So, cat owners should also accept a measure of responsibility for situations like this one. Good fences make good neighbors in the animal world.

Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. I grew up with them, and I plan on getting one in the not-too-distant future (as soon as the kid gets a little older). I also understand that many dogs are mistreated and abused (and yes, I believe keeping one chained up to a tree in the front yard all the time is abuse), and such an environment can make them abnormally aggressive and violent.

But all that having been said, if a dog attacked someone I cared about, I would beat it senseless until it ran away or stopped breathing. Period. That this is a person’s fault for “competing” for a valuable resource? Blaming cats for teasing dogs? Building better fences to make better “animal world” neighbors? Idiotic. This listserv exchange might be more amusing as a sociological experiment if it weren’t so sad.

And with that, the listserv seems to have gone dark for the night. Time for me to go and allow the flames to lick my heels from the comment board.

I’ve gotten a lot of flak for backing the proposed Harris Teeter at Falkland Chase, and perhaps I should clarify some things.

I used to live down in Crystal City, and Harris Teeter was the bomb. Moving to Silver Spring several years ago left me with supermarket options that were sorely lacking in good produce, manageable check-out aisles, clean floors, and a friendly staff. I’m not counting Whole Foods in this equation because A) it’s more expensive, and 2) I can’t buy normal toilet paper, Kraft Singles, and Diet Coke there. Sure, Giant and Safeway have produce, but nine times out of ten it goes bad within a day or two of purchase. The Giant up in Wheaton is passable, but we’ve taken to larger grocery trips up to the Giant in Rockville at Randolph and 355. They have a great gourmet foods aisle, good organic produce, and a wide selection of ethnic foods – all at prices more affordable than Whole Paycheck. I’d still shop with the hippies (especially since they reinstated my much beloved cinnamon-cardamom olives at the olive bar – w00t!), but we need an alternative better than the current options.

Ultimately, I don’t want to drive up to Rockville for groceries. If the corporate stooges at Safeway could see it in their hearts to rehab the Thayer store into something new and exciting, I’d be happy without the Harris Teeter at Falkland Chase. Or redo the Giant by the Blairs to incorporate a better selection of the aforementioned food items and – for the love of God – increase the staff to open more registers so the lines don’t run halfway down the aisles.

But that brings us back to (a Harris Teeter-less) Falkland Chase. Eddie Izzard had a good bit (mentioned here before) about history in the United States. He was watching a show about a hotel in Miami where they said, “We’ve restored this hotel to the way it looked over 50 years ago.” No! Say it isn’t so! 50 years? You can’t do that!

Teet or no, I support more dense development at Falkland Chase. I want it to include a good percentage of MPDUs (the *real* and permanent kind – not a temporary fix to satiate the powers that be only to be turned into something else on down the road). And I don’t think Falkland Chase deserves to be saved in its entirity. Don’t want to give up 9 of the 23 acres? Fine. Give them 7. And add some good ground floor retail. Whatever.

I appreciate the efforts of some to save things in the community that deserve to be saved. Moving Tastee Diner was good. Trying to save the Golden House because it used to be a Little Tavern was insane. The bungalows on the 900 block of Thayer were nice, but they were out of place in the development. Still a shame I couldn’t ransack the property for parts, though (most of which had probably been urinated on by that point).

Between the preservationists and the progressives, I think we can find a happy medium – don’t you?

“I want my Harris Teeter.” Not since Solome uttered the words “Bring me the head of John the Baptist” has a more important phrase been spoken. The Montgomery County Planning Board today postponed the hearing originally scheduled for this Thursday that was to address the very historic Falkland Chase Apartments and its arch nemesis: progress.

Now postponed until sometime in July, the hearing will help decide the fate of Falkland Chase, and whether or not developers would be allowed to (reportedly) take nine of its 22 acres to build more dense housing and a (gravely needed) Harris Teeter. I certainly wouldn’t advocate trashing the whole complex, but I think the CBD is where we need more dense development.

While there has been listserv traffic trying to get people to the meeting to protest the “destruction,” I plan on showing up with big Harris Teeter signs showing my support. There are certainly valid questions about traffic and infrastructure, but I think a solution can be found.

It’s the Central Business District, for crying out loud. And our two venerable grocery stores – Safeway and Giant – suck. So until then…

From the Washington Post:

Prosecutors said Erik Collins, 44, of the 800 block of Thayer Avenue solicited two men to kill Lorenzo Boone, 22, formerly of Germantown.

Click here for the full story.

Screw YOU, Bonifant!

In different news, mad props to Sligo railing against the historic machine. And my wife had the quote of the day when the power came back on (after 25 hours w/out): Holy Mary, Mother of God.

Special message to Annie’s Secret Circle: Drink me, said the lobster. I’ll be just fine.

Tonight we have the final primaries in the race for the Democratic nominee for president. Last up: South Dakota and Montana.

<ul> <li><a href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/primaries/”>2008 presidential primary and caucus results</a></li> <li><a href=”http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/delegates/d/”>Democratic super delegates pledged to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama</a></li> <li><a href=”http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/delegates/r/”>Republican delegates</a></li> </ul> <p>
It’s been great having these on Tuesdays, as it (happily) coincides with Tuesday night Martini Night at Olazzo. I had to miss the last one (or two) due to other commitments, but I plan on being there tonight. I encourage you to go, if you’ve never been.