BESTFOOTFORWARD
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Socially conscious singer steps into the lights at Fillmore. A-15
The Gazette BETHESDA | CHEVY CHASE | KENSINGTON
DAILY UPDATES ONLINE www.gazette.net
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
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Two county men die in Navy Yard shooting Gunman killed 12 on Monday in D.C.
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David Kottler, who manages Mamma Lucia’s in Bethesda, checks an ID in the restaurant’s bar.
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ONLINE EXTRA “IT’S SOMETHING WE SHOULD BE DOING IN THE FIRST PLACE” n Restaurants take cautious approach to county tests www.gazette.net
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PHOTOS BY DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
Rachel is an underage volunteer for the Montgomery County Liquor Board. She poses in a Montgomery County liquor and wine store with her Maryland underage driver’s license, which is vertical and has a red box around her picture to indicate that she is not old enough to purchase alcohol. The Gazette blurred the personal details on her license.
NOT TAKING CHANCES ON Liquor department trial purchases done 400 times a year in county
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COMPLIANCE CHECKS Checked
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ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH
pronounce it correctly. When she started testing restaurants, she was nervous, she said. That first night, more than a half dozen of the 20 restaurants she tested ended up serving her illegally. Montgomery County police work with underage volunteers such as Navarrete to check if restaurants and liquor establishments are selling to drinkers younger than 21, the minimum age to buy or drink alcohol in Maryland. “We don’t call it a sting operation,” said Kathie Durbin, chief of the licen-
STAFF WRITER
AND JACOB
BOGAGE
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
Valeria Navarrete remembers the first time she tested whether a restaurant would sell her alcohol illegally. She was an underage volunteer working with Montgomery County police. “I didn’t know anything or what to choose,” Navarrete said. She asked for a chardonnay, mostly because she knew what the wine looked like and how to
See COMPLIANCE, Page A-9
Of the 400 county businesses tested in the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 111 sold alcohol to minors.
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550
548 406
400
200
111
100 0
2013 Percent in compliance
102 2012
72%
2011
75%
120
110
83 2010
79%
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Topic to be discussed at October town meeting BY AGNES BLUM STAFF WRITER
The cost of burying power lines in the town of Chevy Chase could run as much as $2.4 million per mile, according to a report discussed at a town meeting on Sept. 11. The report also recommends hir-
NEWS
PURPLE LINE FIGHT CONTINUES Chevy Chase plans to hire expert to help fight proposed route of $2.2 billion transit project.
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ing an expert to look into the issue further. The report, created by town council members Al Lang and John Bickerman, stated the low end of the estimate was about $313,000 per mile. The two men, neither of whom are experts in the matter, created the report by examining existing reports and literature and talking to Pepco representatives. The town has long discussed burying power lines and this year’s reported
SPORTS
‘IT WAS VERY MEMORABLE’ Kennedy High School graduate gets a day with tennis pros at the US Open.
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Project could begin in late 2014 BY AGNES BLUM STAFF WRITER
See POWER, Page A-9
See EXPANSION, Page A-14
71%
80%
SOURCE: MONTGOMERY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF LIQUOR CONTROL
surplus of more than $8 million has spurred some on the council to move forward with the idea. Nailing down the cost of the work may prove to be difficult as estimates have fluctuated wildly over the past few years, even from Pepco itself. In 2012, Pepco said the cost of buryingthelinescouldrunanywherefrom$3 million to $12 million a mile and accordingtoareportgivenin2010toD.C.'sPublicServiceCommissionbythefirmShaw Consultants International Inc., the cost
Decision clears way for hospital expansion
would be about $3.5 million per mile. The town has about 10 miles of line to be buried, said Todd Hoffman, town manager. The move would be a smart one, according to the authors of the study, who said “the cost of conversion is a significant concern” but added it was “not so high as to be prohibitive.” “Underground wires are more reliable than above ground,” said Bickerman,
2008
Proposal on the table to bury power lines in Chevy Chase n
See SHOOTING, Page A-9
Suburban Hospital’s controversial expansion plans now have the green light thanks to a Maryland Court of Special Appeals decision to uphold a prior court ruling to allow them to go forward. The $230 million expansion would tear down 10 hospital-owned houses and replace them with a parking garage and a 235,597-square-foot, four-story addition to the hospital, as well as another 1,280 new parking lot spaces, according to a hospital staff report. In 2011, the Huntington Terrace Citizens’ Association’s attempt to stop the hospital’s expansion was denied by the Maryland Circuit Court. The association then took its case to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals in October 2011, said Allan Gold, the association president. The association plans on reviewing the court decision, which was delivered Sept. 10, with its counsel and consulting with members of the com-
2009
80%
Two of the victims identified in Monday’s shooting at the Washington Navy Yard were residents of Montgomery County. According to D.C. Metropolitan Police, John Roger Johnson, 73, of Derwood and Vishnu Pandit, 61, of North Potomac were among 12 people shot and killed by a gunVishnu B. Pandit man at the Navy Yard in Southeast Washington. The suspected gunman, Aaron Alexis,
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SARAH SCULLY STAFF WRITER
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