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Liquor License Settlement Agreement: Bars Beware

In Hospitality by Richard Bianco

If you are facing a liquor license protest, you need to be extremely careful when negotiating a Settlement Agreement with the ANC or citizen’s group. Seemingly innocuous or informative language could limit your ability to grow your business. Recently, the Board emphatically squashed a business’ expansion based on such language. This could have been avoided with a carefully worded agreement.

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D.C. Rent Concessions Law

In Real Estate by Richard Bianco

In the time crunch before the end of the Council Period, it seems that the years-in-the-making legislation to quell the practice of rent concessions will finally come to fruition.

Brief history lesson: prior to 2006 Rent Control was based on a system of rent ceilings. The “ceiling” was the maximum chargeable rent under the statute. For a variety of reasons, the “ceiling” would typically be substantially higher than the market rent.