Roundup: City Tapes Platinum/Bounce Shut

I applaud this action by the city and the invaluable help from Miles Grove. While this is a step in the right direction it is not a solution as the 300-500 kids who used to spend their Saturday nights inside the club may re-locate to loiter on 7th Street. As a result, increased police presence in the area on weekend nights will remain vital as packs of unsupervised adolescents often breeds trouble, especially when those packs include a few instigators with the wrong intentions. Obviously, many of these kids are just trying to have fun on a weekend night after a long week of school, it’s just too bad that a few are ruining it for the many.

Is there some reason pqresident did not name the “civic organization” by its name, the Downtown Neighborhood Association? I get a feeling of bias here. Without the DNA, this would not have happened. Naming the DNA would bolster support and make the DNA even more influential. Would PQ Living care to explain this conspicuous absence of mention? A little “thank you” wouldn’t hurt either.

There are two sides two what actually was while operating at Club Bounce. It was either a cause of a lot of community disturbance and violence. Or it was, as it’s organizer stated at the DNA meeting, a constructive event held to promote the activities and values that we can all appreciate seeing in our youth. Was the event Club Bounce organizer notified about the press conference in advance. I did not see her there. If Club Bounce was not the source of the violence and other problems, then those problems will surely continue or arise again after Club Bounce is gone. An officer told me that the “shooting” that expedited the closure of club bounce actually occurred on the 800 block of 7th St NW — about 4 blocks away.

That’s like blaming ANC2C Chair Doris Brook’s United House of Prayer for the 2 killings at the N Street park surrounded by UHOP properties.

The woman who spoke up at the DNA meeting representing Club Bounce (who also identified herself as a local resident) didn’t strike me as a bold face liar when she described the activities and mission of Club Bounce. In fact, everyone who spoke up to represent Club Bounce spoke with an awareness of the community’s (mis)perception and with a certain sense of responsibility pride about what Club Bounce actually did. It seems more likely that even the Mayor (et. al.) was wrong in scape goating Club Bounce for problems that needed a more sophisticated and reasoned solution.

Maybe the Mayor was just grand standing to help score some political points for those seeking re-election 9 days from now for the public and he’s actually going to do something responsible and support the Club Bounce group behind the scenes when they bounce to their next venue.

how is this not just another example of NIMBY-ism? Obviously, the teens all have to go “somewhere”…but just not in your backyard. It appears that the club itself is not the source of the problem, and it actually might have done some good by giving these kids a safe place to go to on weekends. Do you expect these kids to just stay home on a saturday night? No…and now they might do even worse things than have fun at no-alcohol club.

The city needs to find ways to make clubs like this work, not ban them completely. Oh and how much do you want to bet that if this had attracted a primarily white teen crowd instead of black, the (white) residents of downtown would not have been concerned. I dont see the city cracking down on 18th in adams morgan which has ALOT more problems than this…

I think we would all like for their to be a healthy place for kids to be able entertain themselves, but lets get serious – Platinum is not the place.

The owner of Platinum has had problems every where he goes and now he decides its a good idea to just turn the keys over to 500 or 600 kids who apparently are organizing this stuff themselves and I guess leaving it to the kids to determine what appropriate security measures are, etc.

I appreciate Devan’s post in the other thread and commend his entreprenuerism, but there is a reason why even a high school basketball game these days can require elaborate adult management and professional security.

I think it would be nice for a teen-oriented club to re-open in that space. Makes a lot of sense to me.

Teens don’t need nightclubs — they need adult supervision. The UHOP band practices downtown and that is a great activity — they always have a large number of parents with them and following them up the street. That is a great model.

Penn Quarter at night is simply a place for adults. It is downtown.

I agree with Elaine. Sometimes it seems like this city has its priorities all messed up. First, we’re paying kids to go to school. As if things were so hard on them, now they need a place to party downtown like the grown-ups do? I guess they do need to have a place to spend all of their gov’t hand-outs.

If kids were really doing work in school, they would be less concerned about having a place to party and more concerned about doing their homework, getting good marks, and getting into a college.

It’s a pretty cruel world out there and paying kids to go to school & party is not helping prepare them for adulthood.

CityLiving – please reread the last sentence of the first paragraph. the op-ed comes later. it is suggested that you contact our Ombudsman at pqliving [at] gmail.com if you feel there is an inequity or bias.