here a dry cleaner, there a dry cleaner

The building at 1821 First Street NW looks like it's almost complete, which likely triggered the following petition from ANC 5C 04 commissioner John Salatti:

Although we definitely appreciate the owners’ efforts to rehabilitate a long-vacant building and put it back into useful service, we do not support the opening of a second dry cleaning establishment. This area needs a variety of services that we do not have currently and which we as neighbors would support heartily. These services include sit-down, full-service restaurants, boutiques, stationery and card stores, consignment shops, electronics stores, child-care centers, hardware stores, bakeries, delicatessens, diners, pet grooming establishment, vet clinic, bank, etc. These are businesses that we want, that we need, and that we will patronize. We are not likely to patronize another dry cleaning establishment.

As of this writing, there are now 101 signatures, though since none are publicly visible, it's hard to say how many neighborhood residents actually signed it.  The Housing Complex piece likely drew signatures from outside the community as well, and maybe there will be a few more due to this post.  I can understand that folks are disappointed about getting another dry cleaner when there's City Cleaners just a block away, but this is something that could likely have been addressed by the community when the sale of the building went through, or even earlier, when the for-sale signs went up.  It could have happened even as late as March of this year, which is when the business permits were approved.

I'll admit to slacking off on this personally.  I actually started to draft a post that was focused on the environmental impacts that a dry cleaner would have on the property a couple of months ago: namely, the fact that if the building were ever to be reused for another purpose, it would have to undergo remediation to remove the chemicals used in the dry-cleaning process from the site.  Since that would be a pretty expensive undertaking, once a property is used as a location for a dry cleaner, it generally stays that way.  

That said, I do have to wonder exactly what the petition is meant to achieve.  Online petitions are easy to set up and don't require the time and effort of someone going door-to-door to talk to their neighbors in person, but I think the ease of use comes with a cost.  There's something effective about handing over a sheaf of papers with the signatures and addresses of those who live in the neighborhood, and a printout of a Web page seems sterile in comparison to pages scrawled over with ink.  Will a petition—of any variety—change the owners' plans for 1821 First Street NW?  Probably not, but hopefully it's made the signatories take notice of the goings-on in Bloomingdale.