Cluck-U, American Dream!

Zoning laws are some of the most anti-capitalist laws in the world. They tell who can own what business in what part of town. Now, zoning laws, when used to keep businesses out of quiet neighborhoods make sense. But when you start dictating what types of businesses are allowed to be in a neighborhood based on race or class, there's a problem.

Northeast Washington isn't exactly Georgetown. However, parts of it have been or are being gentrified, following many neighborhoods in its Northwest counterpart. The H Street corridor is the latest area to be the next section of DC to undergo gentrification. With this revitalization comes higher classes trying to dictate what types of businesses can get permits in the area.

Bernard Gibson had a simple wish: to open a Cluck-U Chicken in the H Street neighborhood where his grandparents have lived for decades. Bound and determined, he held two jobs to squirrel away the cash: He owned a carwash and worked as a mechanic for the city. Last year, after selling the carwash, he got a permit for a sit-down restaurant and opened his dream.

But in the age-old way that one person's dream is another's bedevilment, the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission said not so fast: H Street in Northeast Washington is a strip trying to shed its bedraggled past and become a gleaming urban paradise.

Cluck-U is not a sit-down restaurant, the ANC argued. It's a fast-food joint, just like McDonald's and Burger King, and, under zoning laws, neighbors should have had a say before it opened. Because they never got that chance, the ANC wants Cluck-U's permit stripped, an appeal it will make at a hearing today, as the struggle over H Street's future heats up.

Property is supposed to be a sacred tenet of American democracy. Just like you don't censor someone for saying something you don't like, you don't bar someone from owning a business you don't like. Small businesses are the backbone of this country, and business owners provide the framework for the middle class. People are saying that the race card is being played in this battle over Cluck-U and that race has nothing to do with it. However, it has everything to do with it. Maybe it's not conscious racism, but it is definitely classism, and it's an indisputable fact that blacks earn lower incomes than whites. But see, in order for minorities to move up the social ladder, you need minority business owners, and many minority business owners are not in the position to open four star restaurants in their first at bat. Yet, if they are continuously pushed further and further from the city center, they are never going to have the stability to own businesses and move up the social ladder.

You'll often hear wealthier people say, "if they don't like it, they can move." Well, why can't the wealthier people move? The poorer people were in the neighborhood first. Why should a guy with a legitimate permit to do business have his business shut down because the place isn't a place one can go to sit "at an outdoor cafe sipping wine?" Just get your lazy butt off the couch and go to one of the many other establishments in the city where you can do just that!

Good luck, Mr. Gibson, and Cluck-U, Advisory Neighborhood Commission!