4-13-12 News You Can Use from the Adams Morgan Partnership BID!

April 13, 2012

Ci rculator Bus promotion - increase foot traffic to your busines

Planning meeting for Operation Adams Morgan Part II

Summary of meeting with DCRA regarding Second Hand Licenses

Record Store Day - April 21 - Visit Smash and Crooked Beat

FREE Smoothie's on April 17th - Tax Day

Food and Friends' Dining Out for Life - April 26th - support Adams Morgan resturants

FREE Small Business Seminars at WACIF

Circulator Bus Promotion-increase foot traffic to your b usiness!

We are working with DDOT and the Circulator Bus to increase ridership on the bus, get people out of their cars and onto the bus and increase foot traffic into your business.

We are going to place flyers on cars during the days and early evenings that tell people if they bring to flyer into your business you will give them a FREE RIDE coupon to ride the bus - one per person. The regular bus fare is $1. Please keep the flyers and we'll recycle them and repeat it until the 1000 FREE Ride coupons we got from Circulator are gone.

If you would like to participate in this promotion, please let Kristen know ASAP by emailing her at kbarden@adamsmorganonline.org or calling 202-997-0783. We would like to start distributing the flyers early next week.

We'll include your business' name and address on the flyer as a location where they can get the FREE RIDE coupons and we'll deliver to you a stack of the coupons along with a copy of the flyer so you know what it looks like. We'll also bring you Circulator Maps so you can let customers know where the bus will take them.

We need more businesses to participate. This is a fun and easy way to drive customers to your business and encourage use of the Circulator bus! We are also considering including this flyer as an insert into NW Current newspapers so that the advertising dollars go even farther! Please let us hear from you soon!

Planning Meeting for Operation Adams Morgan Part II

MPD Captain Aubrey Mongal notified us this week that he is organizing a planning meeting in the next couple weeks for Operation Adams Morgan Part II. Some of you will remember that last Summer and Fall the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) along with many other DC agencies including ABRA, DC FEMS, DPW and DDOT participated in an initiative called Operation Adams Morgan. The goal was to increase public safety and reduce the incidents of public nuisance crimes. Additional MPD Officers were placed in Adams Morgan along with enforcement officers from various agencies on weekend nights. According to city officials, the initiative was successful. During the month of September 2011, there was a 40 percent reduction in overall crime and a 20 percent reduction in violent crime.

If you would like to participate in the planning meeting, please email Captain Mongal at: aubrey.mongal@dc.go v and let him know of your interest.

Summary of meeting with DCRA regarding Second Hand Licenses

As you may have heard, and the Washington City Paper , DCist and the Huffington Post reported, a number of retail businesses in Adams Morgan were visited by a DCRA inspector along with an MPD officer on Wednesday April 4th. The purpose of the visit was to inform clerks and owners that they were in violation of municipal business regulations and that they faced steep fines if they did not comply within a week.

At the AMPBID's request, yesterday, business owners and the AMPBID met with DCRA Director Nick Majett along with other DCRA staff, Commander George Kucik from MPD and Wilson Reynolds from CM Jim Graham's office.

The results of the meeting were:

1) No fines will be issued to any of the affected businesses if they begin the license application process within 45 days of April 12th (which would end on Monday, May 28).

2) For the businesses that had the incorrect business license, DCRA will credit the cost of that license to the cost of the secondhand dealer license they need to obtain.

3) The AMPBID will work with DCRA to set up a date next week when any of the business owners can come to the DCRA Small Business Resource Center to discuss one-on-one with the licensing staff the specific license and regulatory requirements for a secondhand dealer business.

4) Based on the discussion, the AMPBID along with the business owners and their attorneys will put togther a list of items in the current regulations for secondhand dealers, that are overly burdensome. This list will be used to craft legislation that would amend the District's municipal regulations to include a new class of businesses license that is appropriate for these businesses.

Once this draft legislation is written, we'll share it with other like-businesses across the city as well as other Business Improvement Districts across the city and encourage their support.

Record Store Day - April 21 - visit Smash and Crooked Beat Records!

The annual Record Store Day is Saturday April 21st this year. www.recordstoreday.com

Crooked Beat Records is participating:

2116 18th St NW
Phone: 202 483-BEAT
Email: crookedbeat@crookedbeat.com

as well as

SMASH! Records

2314 18th St. NW
Phone: 202-387-6274
Email: smashdc@gmail.com

SMASH! has teamed up with DC Brau Brewery this year and will be supplying libations.

The original idea for Record Store Day was conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on.

Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

Record Store Day is currently managed by Michael Kurtz, and Carrie Colliton. Folks wanting to contact Record Store Day are encouraged to email information@recordstoreday.com

FREE Smoothie's on April 17th - Tax Day

Come to the Smoothie King at 2438 18th Street, NW who will be having their Grand Opening celebration on Tax Day - Tuesday April 17th.

From 10 am to 6 pm there will be FREE Smoothies - one per person!

www.smoothieking.com

Food and Friends' Dining Out for Life - April 26th - support Adams Morgan resturants

On Thursday April 26th please support the Adams Morgan businesses who are contributing a portion of their sales to Food and Friends

as part of the Dining Out for Life.

Food and Friends is a local non-profit organization that provides home-delivered meals and friendship to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses. Six days a week, staff and volunteers prepare, package and deliver specialized meals to children and adults in DC and 14 counties of Maryland and Virginia.

The participating Adams Morgan businesses are:

18th and U Duplex Diner

Enjoy lunch, dinner or both on THURSDAY, APRIL 26th! Enjoy your meal knowing that with each bite, you are helping put thousands of meals on the tables of your neighbors in need.

FREE Small Business Seminars at the Washington Area Community Investment Fund (WACIF)

The Washington Area Community Investment Fund, Inc. (WACIF) is a nonprofit community development loan fund whose mission is to empower underserved communities and individuals in the Washington, DC metropolitan area by providing access to capital and technical assistance to small businesses, childcare centers, affordable housing developers, and co mmunity organizations. www.wacif.org

Here are some FREE upcoming seminars:

Are You Making Money or Losing Your Shirt?!

Have you taken a hard look at your business lately?

Make sure you're taking the right steps to success and are running a profitable business!

Tuesday, April 24, 6:30pm - 8:30pm - Register Now!

Starting a Home-Based Business in DC

Want to start a business in your home but don't know where to start?

Learn the who, what, where, when and how of starting your business off on the right foot!

Thursday, April 26, 6:30pm - 8:30pm - Register Now!

Small Business Loan Day

Sit and speak one-on-one with a lender!

Reserve your spot today for a one-on-one session with a small business lender - FREE, tailored and honest, financing advice.

Saturday, April 28, 12:00pm - 2:00pm - Register Now!