Bethesda nightlife is on life-support

Bethesda experienced something increasingly rare as July became August this year - nice summer weather without non-stop rain. I did some spot checks on the old "Barnes & Noble" plaza at the corner of Bethesda and Woodmont Avenues in the 9:00 and 10:00 PM hours. These were ideal nights, because the weather was perfect, and no one had gone back to school or college yet. In years past, one would find a large crowd hanging out, the night air filled with music and many conversations.

This year?

Nothing. Dead. One night there was literally no one on the plaza. The next night was captured here on film. Such a sad scene was inconceivable just a few years ago. Of course, downtown Bethesda is not the place it was a few years ago.

This decade got off to a bad start with the Montgomery County Council's disastrous Nighttime Economy Initiative, spearheaded by Councilmember Hans Riemer after his election in 2010. At the time, Bethesda actually had nightlife, with mobs of people outside of popular bars and nightclubs on both sides of downtown. In fact, Bethesda nightlife was even booming back in the 1980s and 1990s, with venues like Twist and Shout, the Yacht Club of Bethesda, and the Shark Club.

We should have been taking the next step by attracting upscale, Las Vegas-style nightclubs to downtown Bethesda, adding standard civic events like Mardi Gras & St. Patrick's Day parades or an Oktoberfest to Bethesda's staid and outdated holiday calendar, and finally ending the archaic Montgomery County government monopoly on liquor sales that restricts economic growth and revenue.

But that's not what Riemer and his vaunted Nighttime Economy Task Force did. Instead of "making us hip," as Riemer promised his cheerleaders in the local media, it ended up tanking the nighttime economy. By the time the smoke had cleared, a record 17 nightspots had closed, the food truck industry in Montgomery County had been completely wiped out, and Riemer and the Council had actually strengthened the County liquor monopoly to preserve it.

Now the streets of downtown Bethesda are dark and deserted after 9 or 10 at night, even in summer. Gone are the crowds on sidewalks where bars used to be, with those spaces still vacant or filled with less vibrant uses.

Bar and club owners had taken it on the chin again. Now it was the regular restaurants' turn.

Despite warnings from myself in 2014, the Montgomery County Council and Planning Board allowed the Regal Cinemas Bethesda 10 to be evicted from 7272 Wisconsin Avenue and demolished, without requiring the developer to provide a replacement cineplex. That reduced the number of people coming to downtown Bethesda by up to 20,000 per weekend, according to a study of the impact of cineplexes on urban centers.

Not only did the loss of foot traffic lead to many restaurant closures, but there was a decline simply in the number of people present on sidewalks and the plaza.

The Council wasn't done yet.

In 2017, they passed a $15 minimum wage bill. During public testimony, the Council was warned by the Restaurant Association of Maryland that the dining sector in Montgomery was already flat by this point, compared to surging growth in adjacent Frederick County, the District and Northern Virginia. A representative of the Maryland Retailers Association noted that Montgomery County had already suffered a net loss of over 2100 retail jobs since the turn of the century.  $15 an hour? "That's a lot of extra Slurpees to sell," a convenience store owner mused bitterly.

The two public garages at Bethesda Row began to have more vacant parking spaces, including the one that regularly would say "FULL" at peak dinner time in even the recent past.

But the plaza outside of Barnes & Noble was the last to go. The quasi-public gathering space was fueled by the bookstore, where local celebrities like David Brooks, John King, and Wolf Blitzer would seek out intellectual tomes. Or one could simply browse, socialize, get a coffee at the Starbucks upstairs, study or charge your phone if the power in your apartment went out.

Barnes & Noble reportedly wanted a lower rent to renew. We can't know exactly what was said in those negotiations, but what is known for sure is that Barnes & Noble closed in January 2018, to be replaced by Anthropologie & Co.

This was literally the last straw. The public garages in the summers of 2018 and 2019 regularly showed hundreds of vacant parking spaces available at peak dinner times. It became so embarrassing that the numeric digital readout of spaces available was finally disabled at the garage entrance by Nando's Peri-Peri.

Everyone waited to see what would happen on the Bethesda Row plaza over the first summer with Anthropologie. The answer that quickly became clear in June was - nothing. A few stragglers sitting even at peak dinner hours. A few returning buskers playing to few ears. One enterprising new musical duo tried to relocate the action to Amazon Books down the street last summer, when the store had just opened. That lasted exactly one night. There's hardly anyone in Amazon Books at night, and the store appears to be a vanity project for Jeff Bezos at this point.

The collapse of the nighttime economy, the loss of 20000 people per weekend with the theater closure, and the departure of community favorite Barnes & Noble was a collective weight that already-teetering businesses could not support. Major anchor restaurants closed around Bethesda Row, including American Tap Room, Redwood, and Lebanese Taverna, all of which had lasted many years.

Regular readers of this news site are well-informed about the cratering of nightlife, and, of course, residents are living through it. But our elected officials, who know little about how business works (as proven by Montgomery County having the worst economic development numbers in the region), still can't admit anything is wrong or that they have failed.

Just as my years and years of warnings about our moribund economy eventually were picked up on by the Washington Post, near-victorious County Executive candidate David Blair, and even former Riemer chief-of-staff Adam Pagnucco, the nightlife problem (which is actually countywide) may also be reaching a point so low it can't be ignored any longer.

When Tapp'd Bethesda closed recently, one of its owners told reporter Charlie Wright of Bethesda Magazine that the collapse of nightlife in Bethesda was the culprit. "Co-owner Johnny Natoli said the declining downtown Bethesda scene led to the downfall of Tapp’d," Wright wrote. "Natoli likened the area to the Ocean City boardwalk when Union Jack’s opened in 2005, but added that it’s fallen off drastically since then. 'There’s no action down there, there’s nothing going on...I see a lot of for lease signs down there,'” Natoli noted.

Recent development appears to have hurt, rather than helped, the plaza at Bethesda Row. Over 10 years later, Montgomery County never delivered on politicians' promises of a new public space outside Mon Ami Gabi and the Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema (which does not show mainstream blockbusters, for any who are unaware). A low-slung building at 4749 Bethesda Avenue that seemed ideal for restaurant and bar uses, complete with a rooftop deck for dining or club programming, ended up being leased to a bank that ensures it will be dark in the evening.

Speaking of dark, the Lot 31 buildings across the street never did get the illuminated rooflines that would make them attractive at night. Silver is hidden from the plaza up Woodmont Avenue, and while PassionFish seems to be a success, the intersection designed to frustrate drivers ended up creating a veritable ocean of concrete between the plaza and whatever patio activity takes place at the seafood restaurant. New urbanist design would have made a tight, 4-way cross intersection to bring the various developments together.

There is now less light and energy than ever. Lot 31 had more lights than the developments that replaced it. Today, large black hulks loom over the plaza from Lot 31, 4747 Bethesda Avenue, and 7272 Wisconsin Avenue at night. Will 4747 Bethesda get a great restaurant tenant on the ground floor (and will it be visible from the plaza?)? Will 7272 Wisconsin deliver a nicely-illuminated roofline and promised Italian villa staircase behind the Landmark theater? What can be done to revitalize the plaza at Bethesda Row?

The District and Northern Virginia are destroying us in nightlife, as they are in economic development. Montgomery County hasn't attracted a major corporate headquarters in over 20 years. Shockingly, the current Council hasn't moved on either crisis - nor on our traffic congestion and debt crises - since taking office last December.

I ran for the County Council on those issues - and real solutions - last year. The media never reported on my campaign. Most voters didn't seem to bother to research the candidates before voting. And shockingly-anomalous voting results at dozens of precincts suggest their votes might not have counted if they did.

You won't hear Kojo Nnmadi inviting me on his radio show to talk about these issues. Only good news about our elected officials can be heard there. Looking at the non-existent economic numbers and dark streets at night, there isn't much good news to tell these days.

This is a crisis. And a conversation that must be had sooner, rather than later.