The Advisory Neighborhood Commission and Champions Sports Bar and Restaurant reached a voluntary agreement on Feb. 26 restricting entrance to patrons 21 years old and over at all times. The agreement also called for the installation of an ID scanner, among other changes.
Prior to this agreement, Champions had allowed under-21 patrons to enter the establishment before 8 p.m., as well as during special under-21 events.
The new provisions come after neighborhood complaints of patrons’ rowdiness and multiple underage drinking arrests, said ANC Commissioner Peter Pulsifer, co-chair of the ABC committee. The ABC committee oversees issues dealing with alcohol and liquor licensing.
“[The agreement] is to reign in rampant underage drinking that we were seeing at Champions. Champions is the poster child of underage drinking at Georgetown,” ANC Commissioner Bill Starrels said.
Champions, which is located at 1206 Wisconsin Ave., will also eliminate all-you-can-drink specials, close the windows of the building facing Prospect Street to reduce noise, improve conditions in the trash area and restrict on-campus advertising, Pulsifer said.
“They were advertising to a population that they knew the majority of the people were underage,” Starrels said, referring to fliers placed on campus by Champions.
According to Pulsifer, although a voluntary agreement has been reached, Champions still faces a hearing in front of the D.C. Alcohol and Beverage Commission and could lose its license. The ANC would not have entered an agreement with Champions if the hearing was not guaranteed to occur, Starrels said.
The ABC holds weekly hearings and has the authority to close bars temporarily or permanently. For instance, the ABC closed Paper Moon, a restaurant located at 1069 31st St., for a weekend a month ago after a policeman was assaulted and underage drinking arrests were made there, Pulsifer said.
According to Pulsifer, the ANC initially protested the renewal of Champions’ license in January 2001 because of neighborhood concerns over patrons’ behavior, noise and trash.
Negotiations lasted over a year and the agreement came after a number of arrests for underage drinking in the weekends leading up to the contract, he said.
Champions had 10 violations in January and three more since then, according to Starrels.
“It was to the point where the police were joking that Champions just didn’t care about IDs,” Starrels said.
Pulsifer and Starrels said that they were hopeful about the success of the new agreement between Champions and the ANC.
“If it’s followed, I think it has a good chance for remedying the problem,” Pulsifer said.
Champions’ manager Lewis Earle confirmed that an agreement had been reached. but would not comment on the contents of the agreement or on the ABC hearing.
Students expressed concern over the agreement.
“I think they’re going to lose business. The biggest impact will be the ID scanner. People will still go to Champs, but the amount will decrease, certainly with the younger [years],” Alexis Guthrie (CAS ‘05) said.
Starrels said he thinks that an older crowd will bring in more money for Champions. “People with jobs have more money to spend,” he said. “I know I didn’t have much money when I was in college.”
