Update: Potomac Rats, Again
By • June 21, 2017 0 294
Garbage bins on Potomac Street next to Falafel Inc. Photo by Peggy Sands.
Emails scampered to and fro last week — June 7 to 10 — among Potomac and M Street residents, Public Works and Health Department officials and members of the unofficial “Death to Potomac Rats” coffee klatch.
The emails described a rats’ après-Mother’s-Day feast in front of a new takeout restaurant, Falafel Inc.; posed questions (What rights do they have to place tables and chairs on the sidewalk? To leave garbage pails outside on the sidewalk at night? To use garage space next door for their garbage pails?); and made demands.
On Sunday, June 18, the new takeout was full of customers, as were the outside tables and chairs. Garbage pails were closed, standing neatly on a cement pad next to the wall of the large condo garage next door. Recent emails offered assurances that an agreement had been reached. Officials said they would monitor the situation regularly.
But across the street and down the alley behind Chipotle, nothing had changed, even after last month’s brouhaha about rat-infested garbage pails. More than a half-dozen pails with lids still stood on the ground behind the restaurant. There was no sign of a promised cement platform construction. No rats (or cats) were in sight either, but the temperature was now over 90 degrees.
