Latest News

Joseph Park • July 24, 2014

SoulCycle, the New York-based, indoor-cycling studio, will open its first location in D.C. Aug. 2, the company confirmed. After months of great anticipation, SoulCycle’s first D.C. studio will be located at 2301 M St., NW, in the West End.

“SoulCycle is indoor cycling reinvented,” said Elizabeth Cutler, co-founder of Soul Cycle. “It’s a 45-minute long, full-body, cardio workout on a bike, with weights and core engaging choreography thrown in. It’s also a human experience that makes you feel alive. It’s a combination of inspirational instructors, riding as a community, high-energy music and a dark room that makes SoulCycle more than just physical.”

Cutler expressed her excitement in opening up a new studio in D.C. and discussed plans of expansion in metropolitan Washington. The West End studio is the 30th location for SoulCycle, founded in 2006.

“We’ve wanted to open in D.C. for a long time — really since we opened in New York,” Cutler said. “We are thrilled the time has finally come. Fortunately, we also found our second studio which will open in Bethesda at the end of the year.”

The SoulCycle studio, which has been attracting many celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, has provided locals with the unique experience to inspiring fitness experience.

“We are both searching for an inspiring and challenging fitness experience,” said Julie Rice, co-founder of SoulCycle. “The goal at SoulCycle is deeper than simply getting you to sweat. We help people find their personal strength and joy through exercise.”

The first class – “First Time Ride” – is $20. Thereafter, a one-time class is priced at $34 with other price packages for more classes. A 30-class package costs $850, which a 50-class package – with concierge service and other perks — expires after one year and costs $3,500.
[gallery ids="101818,139660" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • July 21, 2014

Plein Air Easton Art Festival

July 17th, 2014 at 07:00 AM | Event Website

Plein Air Easton is the largest and most prestigious juried plein air painting competition in the United States. In its 10th year, it is held annually in Easton, Maryland each July. Plein air painters produce art from life (as opposed to in the studio). Artists from all over the United States and beyond apply to this competition. There will be 58 competing artists that will paint throughout Talbot County, Maryland the week of July 12-20, 2014. The resulting original works of art are displayed in the Academy Art Museum where awards are announced and paintings are sold throughout the final weekend.

Address

Plein Air Easton; 40 East Dover Street; Easton, Maryland 21601

Bethesda Row Summer Sidewalk Sale

July 18th, 2014 at 09:00 AM | Free

Bethesda Row will hold the Bethesda Row Summer Sidewalk Sale, the annual festival that turns the Bethesda Row quadrant into a festive outdoor street bazaar, offering live entertainment along with unprecedented deals on fashions, housewares, beauty items, furniture and more. The weekend also offers restaurants specials throughout Bethesda Row.

Address

4950 Elm St.; Bethesda, MD

Castleton Festival: Don Giovanni

July 18th, 2014 at 08:00 PM | Event Website

Maestro Lorin Maazel will conduct a new production of Don Giovanni at the 2014 Castleton Festival, held in the 650-seat Festival Theatre. Don Giovanni is Mozart’s two-act opera based on the legendary exploits and adventures of the fictional hero Don Juan, directed by renowned Italian stage director Giandomenico Vaccari, returning to Castleton after receiving critical acclaim for its 2013 production of The Girl of the Golden West.

Address

Castleton Farms; 7 Castleton Meadow Lane; Castleton, VA 22716

Zoogazing! Planetarium to Arrive at National Zoo

July 19th, 2014 at 09:00 AM | Admission is free! | Roman-CohenT@si.edu | Tel: 202-633-3026 | Event Website

Take a journey to the stars without leaving the Zoo! A mobile planetarium is coming to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, courtesy of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It will be an out-of-this-world event! This Saturday, July 19, from 9am to 2pm, the Zoo’s Visitor Center will transform into a planetarium where you can view animal-themed constellations. There will also be storytelling, crafts, a scavenger hunt, and much more. It’s fun for the whole family! Learn more at fonz.org/zoogazing.

Address

3001 Connecticut Ave., Nw

Thai Village

July 19th, 2014 at 11:00 AM | kelsey@lindarothpr.com | Tel: 703-417-2702 | Event Website

The fourth annual Thai Village, in celebration of Thailand’s traditions and people will feature food from several of DC’s best Thai restaurants, musical performances, art exhibitions, food demonstrations and traditional Thai massage.

Address

Grace Church; 1041 Wisconsin Ave NW (across from the Thai Embassy in Georgetown)

2001: A Space Odyssey

July 19th, 2014 at 08:30 PM | $22.00 – $55.00 | philipc@wolftrap.org | Tel: 703.255.1900 ext. 1729 | Event Website

The ground-breaking 1968 film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick still retains its allure and mystery. The NSO performs the score live as the enigmatic and compelling film is screened in the house and on the lawn. The film is presented by arrangement with Warner Bros., Southbank Centre London, and the British Film Institute.

Address

1551 Trap Road Vienna Virginia, 22182

Jane Austen Outdoor Film Festival

July 23rd, 2014 at 08:30 PM | Free | info@dumbartonhouse.org | Event Website

You are cordially to DUMBARTON HOUSE for our third outdoor summer film fest!

This year, no registration is required to attend. Doors open to Museum Members at 7:00 pm. Doors open to the public at 7:30 pm. Due to our site capacity, admission will be first-come, first-served.

Screening Schedule:

July 23rd Sense & Sensibility (1995)

August 6th Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Rain dates are July 16th, July 30th, and August 11th. All films begin around 8:30pm

Address

Dumbarton House; 2715 Q ST, NW

Gary Tischler •

People die every day. We note the passing of people of note, and in doing so, we also remember. They are not our loved ones, our relatives, our children or parents, but still we mourn, because we live in the time of knowing many people without ever having said hello.

Obituaries are the way we remember the passing of people whom we know from books, screens, stage, those venues that show or record excellences and achievement.

Therefore, we note the passing of a famed conductor who left a lasting legacy by founding the Castleton Festival and program; a Pulitzer Prize-winning political historian; a Nobel Prize winning novelist and activist; an albino white-haired Texas blues player; and a show business legend on Broadway and television.

We note the passing of Lorin Varencove Maazel, James McGregor Burns, Nadine Gordimer, Johnny Winter and Elaine Stritch.

LORIN VARENCOVE MAAZEL, 84

Not surprisingly, Maazel was a prodigy. Born to Jewish-American parents with a Russian background in Neully-sur-Seine France, he had a father who was a singer, a voice and piano teacher and an actor, and a mother who founded the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra—plus his grandfather was a violinist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

So, it may not be a surprise that Maazel made his conducting debut at the age of eight. He conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra at the age of 11. The list from that point goes on and on: he toured as conductor of the Gershwin Concert Orchestra in the 1950s, and in the 1970s, he was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, then became music director of the Orchestre National de France in Paris, followed by a stint as Vienna State Opera general manager and conductor, was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra , director of the New York Philharmonic and so on.

Maazel and his wife Dietlinde Turban Maazel founded the Castleton Festival in 2009 on his 600-acre estate Castleton Farms in Castleton, Va., between Sperryville and Warrenton. He also did something more than make and create great music: he left a living legacy of performance that encouraged young musicians in all phases, and he worked tirelessly on that project. The Castleton Festival—replete with live performances and seminars — now wrapping up another season has becoming increasingly respected and noteworthy in the classical music world after five seasons, and it’s hoped that it will continue to provide the kind of musical event and training that is priceless for both audiences and musicians. Maazel was 84. He died from complications from pneumonia.

JAMES MACGREGOR BURNS, 95

Burns, who wrote a two-volume biography of Franklin Roosevelt, “The Lion and the Fox” and “The Soldier of Freedom” (Pulitzer Prize, 1970), was a leader in the study of leadership. In Roosevelt, he found a leader that he saw pragmatically and clearly, a strong leader who could inspire while work the politics of issues to his advantage.

He wrote—among 20 books—a three-volume political history of the United States, “The American Experiment,” and was co-author of “Government by the People” as well as a 1963 book called “The Deadlock of Democracy,” which predicted precisely the kind of partisan deadlock which is gripping Washington today.

All of this writing, and research, resulted in the end a whole new field of academic and intellectual study of leadership, including the University of Maryland’s Burns Academy of Leadership.

NADINE GORDIMER, 90

Nadine Gordimer wrote novels and was the recipient of the 1991 Nobel prize for literature. But she was a lot more than just a writer of fiction.

A South African, Gordimer was raised in Gauteng , a mining town near Johanessburg. Spurred by her Jewish parents’ experience of oppression in Czarist Russia, she took a critical interest in Apartheid in South Africa and spoke out against it, especially after the Sharpsville massacre of 1960. It was also a time when she came into her own as a novelist and short story writer, publishing in the New Yorker. Her novels—which were insightful and critical of the South African government—were often banned or censored in South Africa. She did not stop with just writing, however. She joined the banned political party, the African National Congress, and in later years was an AIDS activist.

Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.

JOHNNY WINTER, 70

Johnny Winter was an albino, he had white hair like his brother Edgar, and came out of Beaumont, Texas, and at age ten, he played on a local children’s show on the ukulele, and sang Everly Brothers songs.

He ended up becoming one of the pre-eminent blues guitarist — and singers. He was ranked 63rd among blues guitarists by Rolling Stone Magazine in a field dominated and inspired by Delta Blues African American musicians like Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Bobby Bland. Winter idolized Muddy Waters, as did a number of British blues players like Eric Clapton. To them, the blues were the source of everything in rock-and-roll.

His big first success was being recognized by Columbia Records by way of Mike Bloomfield and Al Cooper, ending up jamming with them at Fillmore East, where he played B.B. King’s “It’s My Own Fault.” His first album remains a classic—“The Progressive Blues Experiment”, in 1969, with Tommy Shannon on bass, drummer Uncle John Turner, Edgar Winter on keyboards and sax, blues giant Willie Dixon and Big Walter Horton, where he played and sang the remarkable version of “Be Careful with a Fool.”

Winter was for a short time in a relationship with Janis Joplin. All the great blues players, singers, boys and girls, black and white, live online for us to view today. If you love the blues and listen to the jam session of a Muddy Waters tribute, you’ll just about feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven. Which is about what Winter, who died in Geneva, Switzerland, may have done—or at least gone off to wherever they perpetually play the blues.

ELAINE STRITCH, 89

Elaine Strich was something else. She was raised as a strict Catholic girl in Connecticut, but she always seemed, with her raspy voice, her attitude, her sheer presence, to be something much less than demure.

She lit up Broadway a number of times. She made her debut there in a comedy called “Loco” in 1946, was in the original production of William Inge’s “Bust Stop,” performed gloriously in Noel Coward’s 1961 show, “Sail Away,” and spectacularly stopped the show with her number “Ladies Who Lunch” in Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.”

On television, she won three Emmys for a guest role on “Law & Order,” a documentary of her one-woman Broadway show, “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” and most notably for playing Alec Baldwin’s mother Colleen on “30 Rock.”

There was always something about her, no matter what she did—movies like “Autumn in New York” or “Monster-in-Law” or television series or Broadway shows in a crowd of others, that made you want to look and listen. She was a show stopper and defined that term—she could one-up Ethel Merman or the most brazen performer or even herself. This isn’t about charm—it’s about talent and having the gift of being unforgettable.

Joseph Park • July 17, 2014

Anthony Lanier, owner of EastBanc, Inc., said that despite the fact there is a contract to buy the gas station property at 2715 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, the gateway to Georgetown, there is nothing substantial developing in terms of his company’s plan to redevelop the property. EastBanc is already working on a condo project near Key Bridge near Georgetown’s western gateway.

“We have no plans as of now,” Lanier wrote of EastBanc’s intention about the property in an email. As first reported by the Washington Business Journal, speculations have surfaced that there are still plenty of questions unanswered as to whether or not the current owners could stay as joint-venture partners and re-develop the gas station into a residence property.

According to the Washington Business Journal, Lanier said he believes that there is potential to create a signature project on the given site for its unique location at the intersection between M Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, which serves as a gateway to Georgetown.

The station is owned by ABC Automotive LLC and is assessed at $1.9 million, according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.

Robert Devaney • July 14, 2014

The life of Walter Nicholls, a food writer of many talents and with many friends, will be celebrated 10:15 a.m., Friday, July 11, at the Friends Meeting House of Washington, a historic Quaker meeting place at 2111 Florida, Ave., NW., near Restaurant Nora.

There will be a very informal service with a reception afterwards by Susan Gage Caterers. All are invited.

Nicholls, who was 64 years old, died of cancer June 1.

A Washington native and Georgetown resident, Nicholls was a former staff writer for the Washington Post Food section. He took the employee buy-out from the company in 2008. In 2010, Nicholls first wrote for The Georgetowner and then created the popular column in The Georgetowner, “What’s Cooking, Neighbor?” last year. He also was the restaurant critic for Arlington Magazine. He represented Cook Flavor Company and was known for delivering vanilla beans all around town.

Natalie Koltun •

Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution, which began in 1789 when citizens stormed a Parisian prison holding political prisoners. By seizing the prison, the people declared that they would no longer tolerate living under monarchist rule.

This year celebrates the 225th anniversary of the storming of Bastille. Washingtonians are invited to attend a variety of celebratory events and activities throughout the weekend to enjoy La Fête Nationale in traditional Parisian style.

In addition to recognizing Bastille Day this weekend, the Embassy of France is hosting an evening celebrating Liberty Day in Normandy on Friday, June 11, complete with live jazz and swing music, dancing, cocktails, gourmet dishes from more than 20 local restaurants and a raffle to win a luxury trip to Paris. 4101 Reservoir Rd., NW. For details, click here.

On Saturday, July 12, join Hillwood Estate and Alliance Française de Washington at their annual French Festival for a full day of 18th-century art, live dance and musical performances by New York Baroque Dance Company, comedy shows, games and lessons. 4155 Linnean Ave., NW.

Party like it’s 1789 at L’Enfant Cafe Bar in Adams Morgan for its 10th Annual Bastille Day block party from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 12. There, guests can enjoy a beer garden, music, can-can dancers, food truck pavilion, masquerade street ball and the annual French maid race, with a chance to win a trip for two to France. 2000 18th St., NW.

For a more sophisticated soiree, visit the garden of the Georgetown Ritz-Carlton Sunday for complimentary champagne tasting by Moët Ice Impérial, live music, dancing and delicious cake served by a Marie Antoinette lookalike. 3100 South St., NW. For details, click here.

To celebrate France’s national holiday, Paul Bakery is holding its fourth annual Bastille Day baguette relay race on Monday, July 14, continuing a French tradition at its store at 801 Pennsylvania Ave., NW. Relay teams will race around the Navy Memorial and pass on a fresh-baked baguette, in lieu of a baton, to a teammate. At 11 a.m., a kid’s race will begin, followed by an adult race at 11:30 a.m. Paul is a French, family-owned bakery, with seven bakeries set around the Washington metropolitan area. For details on the baguette relay race, click here.

Gary Tischler •

When Rita Moreno talks, there’s always a contextual echo. “I’m an actress,” she’ll say, excusing in advance a rich bag of memories and stories that she’ll tell with exuberance and without much prompting.

“You’ll be lucky if you get to say anything,” she kidded with National Portrait Gallery curator of Latino art and history Taina Carago, who was interviewing her.

Moreno had a lot to say in the July 9 Living Self Portrait event, featuring Moreno who is part of the NPG’s “Dancing The Dream” exhibition which ends July 13. She was also here for a post-interview book signing, “Rita Moreno: A Memoir.”

“I came to this country when I was five years old, “ the 82-year-old actress said. “I came from Puerto Rico. My parents were divorced—my father had a problem with womanizing, I think—and my mother came and brought me to New York to Spanish Harlem. She was a single mother, which was kind of scandalous in those days for a Hispanic woman, but she raised me. She worked and was a wonderful seamstress, among other things. She made sure not just that I survived, but that I got to go to dance classes, to learn, to nurture whatever talents I had. I am always amazed by her. She was so strong.”

She recalled when she was coming into New York Harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty. “In Puerto Rico, you see statues of men, generals, the achievers, statesmen, that of kind thing. When I saw that great green statue of a lady—I thought, my goodness, a lady runs this country.”

“When we came on the boat, there was a storm, and I was frightened. Puerto Ricans don’t swim, you know. And I wondered why my mother brought me to this place, where it was cold and took me from my tropical paradise.”

Moreno recalled that, while she went to classes and to school, there were no role models of any sort, no mentors. “It wasn’t like today. There wasn’t this large population of Hispanics when I was a child. And you get the usual things—people calling you a ‘Spic.’ One thing I realized, if I was going to realize any sort of dream, I was going to have to learn the language, to speak the language, and not just speak ghetto Spanish. To learn to speak like the people around you, or you would not get anywhere. You would never feel at home, otherwise.”

Listening to her talk about her childhood—“It’s all in the book,” she said—you can’t help but be caught up a little in one of the biggest issues of our day. You’ve heard the stories on the nightly news—the logjam of children from Central America, trying to make their way into the United States, the combative, divisive debate over immigration and the current crisis on the Texas border. The stories from the news form a kind of background noise for the stories of Rita Moreno, who led a different immigrant’s life that over the years led to an accumulative triumph, but also times of frustrations and emotional turmoil.

The story is that Moreno has made a home here, more than that, a life which still moves with energy. “I am a working actress, a performer,” she said. “I still work all of the time, because that’s who I am.”

Who she is and was is a woman who is one of only eight living performers and the only Latino to have achieved the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony and the Grammy. She won two Emmys for “The Muppet Show” and “The Rockford Files,” a Grammy for her 1972 performance on the “Electric Company” album, and a Tony for her performance as Googie Gomez in “The Ritz”.

Her Oscar came for her performance as Anita in the 1962 riveting, spectacularly successful film version of “West Side Story”—the mind’s eye can still remember her flaring her brightly colored skirt singing and dancing in “America,” as in “Everything is free in America. We like to be in America.” She played the girlfriend of the leader of a Puerto Rican gang, battling with white gangs framed around a Romeo-and-Juliet type love story, featuring Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood.

Her whole Hollywood career which commenced when she was very young—she had been taught dancing by Rita Hayworth’s uncle—centered around a string of roles playing ethnic girls. “You name it, Indians, and Indians, Polynesians, Arabians, Latin Americans, girls of easy morals, sexy and spicy and the movies often weren’t very good.” They ranged from big studio efforts like “Garden of Evil” (Mexican spitfire) to “The Yellow Tomahawk” (sexy Indian maid) and so on. One excellent role was the doomed young girl in “The King and I.” “When I first started I was taken to see Louis B Mayer, the head of MGM studios,” Moreno said. “He looked at me and he said, ‘She looks like a Mexican Elizabeth Taylor.’ ”

“Oh, my God, I hated it,” she said. “I couldn’t get away from it. It took a long time, and it seemed like you had to fight for everything. It was exciting at first, but then it was one dusky maiden after another. They didn’t see me.”

She had to relearn dancing to get the part of Anita. “I heard on Oscar night that there was this huge audience watching their television sets in Spanish Harlem and that they went nuts when I won.”

By that time, people did see her in all her glory—the dancer, the actress (“Carnal Knowledge” in a small but powerful role as a prostitute), the singer, the out-and-out-full-steam-ahead performer. And wife, and doting mom of jewelry designer Fernanda Louisa Gordon.

“You have to keep going,” she said. “I am what I am, and you work hard to keep yourself sharp and smart. You test yourself.”

“Sometimes,” she said. “I remember that little girl who was a little afraid in this country. “

She doesn’t sound one bit afraid. She remains: that woman, so smart and so funny, storyteller and actress, Rita Moreno, star of stage and screen and memories.

Georgetowner •

Shot in the Dark Golf & Dinner Classic

July 11th, 2014 at 05:00 PM | $195-$375 | mmccall@clb.org | Tel: 202-434-6406 | Event Website](http://www.clb.org/)

Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind’s Second Annual Shot in the Dark Golf & Dinner Classic is a unique fundraiser promoting the awareness of the prevalence of visual impairments and the abilities of those with vision impairment. Activities include a 9-hole night golf tournament, dinner, live entertainment, a putting contest, and a memorable blind golf clinic.

Address

Woodmont Country Club; 1201 Rockville Pike; Rockville, MD 20852

Castleton Festival: Madama Butterfly

July 11th, 2014 at 08:00 PM | [Event Website](https://www.castletonfestival.org/)

Maestro Lorin Maazel will conduct a new production of Madama Butterfly at the 2014 Castleton Festival, held in the 650-seat Festival Theatre. Madama Butterfly, one of Giacomo Puccini’s most influential and famous works which tells the dramatic love story of an American naval officer and his young Japanese bride, directed by Tomer Zvulun.

Address

Castleton Farms; 7 Castleton Meadow Lane; Castleton, VA 22716

Disney Fantasia Live in Concert

July 11th, 2014 at 08:30 PM | $22.00 – $55.00 | philipc@wolftrap.org | Tel: 703.255.1900 ext. 1729 | [Event Website](http://www.wolftrap.org/Find_Performances_and_Events/Performance/14Filene/0711show14.aspx)

Experience Disney magic on the big screen when the NSO casts an enchanting musical spell on sorcerer Mickey and other cherished animated characters from Fantasia (1940) and Fantasia 2000

Address

1551 Trap Road Vienna Virginia, 22182

Ritz Carlton: World Cup Final Match & Celebration

July 13th, 2014 at 03:00 PM | [Event Website](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/world-cup-2014-final-match-celebration-registration-12173097061)

Art Soiree & The Ritz-Carlton, Georgetown are partnering up to turn the Ballroom of the hotel into a watching destination of the final match of the World Cup. Featuring live telecast on a huge screen in the Ballroom, drinks & food specials, as well as the celebration with confetti, music & dancing after the game. To RSVP, click [Event Website](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/world-cup-2014-final-match-celebration-registration-12173097061).

Address

Ritz-Carlton, Georgetown; 3100 South Street NW

Ride Towards Wellness, a program with Women & Bicycles

July 13th, 2014 at 01:00 PM | Free | Erika.Rydberg@dc.gov | Tel: 202-727-0232 | [Event Website](http://dclibrary.org/georgetown)

Whether you ride for fun, to commute or to race, cycling is becoming a part of many women’s health routines. Join WABA and Role Model Laurie from Proteus Bicycles. Laurie is a Women’s Health expert,and has offered to host a skill share on health and biking.

Join us to learn about how biking benefits your health and the health of our communities.

No need to RSVP, but if you would like to you can RSVP on this [Facebook event page](https://www.facebook.com/events/312069855615706/)

Address

3260 R Street NW Washington, DC 20007

Harbour Nights: Julia Fanning

July 16th, 2014 at 06:30 PM | [Event Website](http://www.thewashingtonharbour.com/events/)

Relax on the plaza at the Washington Harbour and hear live music at Harbour Nights. Julia Fanning will be performing Wednesday, July 16 and will begin their two-hour show at 6:30 pm. Shows will be on every Wednesday night through September 24.

For more information about the list of people coming in go to: [www.thewashingtonharbour.com](http://www.thewashingtonharbour.com/events/)

Address

3000 K St , next to outdoor restaurants on the Potomac River waterfront in Georgetown.

Natalie Koltun •

Rhino Bar and Pumphouse, Georgetown’s unofficial college football bar, will shut down this week after having its liquor license suspended for selling beer to an underage student in February 2013.

The acclaimed Philadelphia Eagles and Boston Red Sox bar, located at 3295 M St., NW, will be closed Tuesday, July 8, through Saturday, July 12, as mandated by D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

According to the ABC Board, an officer from the Metropolitan Police Department was stationed at the bar’s entrance to assist in identifying fake IDs on the night of the incident in February 2013. Two women walked past the line of patrons waiting to enter the establishment and went straight to the bouncer. After speaking with him, the two women hurried down M Street and were followed by the same police officer who was stationed at the entrance. They then admitted to the police officer that the bouncer alerted them of the cop’s presence and warned them not to enter, despite the fact that Rhino Bar had let them, and many other underage individuals, inside the establishment on previous occasions.

Upon returning to the bar, the officer approached two other women drinking inside. One of them was a 19-year-old Georgetown lacrosse player holding a Bud Light. Rhino Bar owner Charles Britton Swann, of the recently closed M Street hamburger and ice cream shop, Serendipity 3, claimed that the establishment was not serving Bud Light at the time and that the lacrosse player must have entered through the back door and brought her own alcohol with her.

Rhino Bar argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that it served the underage lacrosse player because they did not serve that brand of beer on the night of the incident. The D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board stated that the lacrosse player had no other source of alcohol other than the bar since Rhino Bar does not allow customers to enter with their own containers of alcohol.

Since this was the second incidence of underage alcohol consumption at Rhino Bar within two years, the Board suspended its liquor license for five days and fined the business $3,000.

For details on the court’s ruling, [click here](http://abra.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/abra/publication/attachments/RhinoBarandPumphouse-13-CMP-161-6182014.pdf).