Launched in January 2010, ARLnow.com is the place for the latest news, views and things to do around Arlington, Virginia. Started by a Pentagon City resident who has spent the past several years working in local TV news, ARLnow.com seeks to distinguish itself with original, enterprising, up-to-the-minute local coverage.
Last month, a Virginia ABC permit application was filed for a new restaurant called “Anjorie,” listing Secret Chopsticks’ address and phone number. An employee reached by ARLnow.com last week declined to comment and referred us to a manager, who we were unable to reach despite multiple attempts.
Few details are available about Anjorie, except the name of the company behind it — Vandor Management LLC — and the fact that it plans to serve wine, beer and cocktails, and seat more than 150.
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders signs outside the Arlington Arts Center
Super Tuesday voting in Rosslyn
Donald Trump sign on the ground outside the Arlington Arts Center
As of 2 p.m. today, with five hours to go until polls close, the percentage of Arlington voters casting ballots in the Republican presidential primary has already exceeded the total from the 2008 GOP primary.
Mid-day Super Tuesday turnout was 24 percent of registered voters in Arlington — 9 percent Republican, 15 percent Democrat.
In 2008, when Barack Obama and John McCain cruised to victory in Virginia, 7 percent of registered Arlington voters cast Republican ballots while 33 percent voted in the Democratic primary.
“For the Republican primary in particular, it’s been a heavier than expected turnout,” said Arlington County Registrar Linda Lindberg. Democratic turnout, she predicted, is likely to be down slightly from 2008.
Absentee voting is up across all parties, but especially so for Republicans. This year, 2,570 Democratic and 952 Republican ballots were cast, compared to 2,166 Democratic and 440 Republican ballots in 2008.
Lindberg said polling places along the Orange Line corridor and in South Arlington, all Democratic strongholds, have seen surprisingly heavy Republican turnout, while turnout is in line with expectations in some of the more Republican-leaning precincts in far northern Arlington. That raises the possibility of crossover voting; Virginia is one of 18 states with an open presidential primary.
One factor for the increased Republican turnout may be the presence of Donald Trump in the race. Supporters of the businessman and GOP frontrunner have been particularly prolific in placing signs around polling places in Arlington — so much so that Lindberg said the county elections office has received at least one complaint about the Woodmont polling station having too many Trump signs.
(While county ordinance limits political signs in roadside medians to no more than two per candidate per median, there’s no limit at polling places on the day before or day of an election.)
One Trump supporter got an earful this morning while placing signs around Arlington. Reuters reported that former Republican congressional candidate Gwendolyn Beck was putting Trump signs up in front of the Arlington Arts Center, in Virginia Square, when local attorney and cycling advocate Mark Blacknell walked by en route to a nearby polling place.
“I came here to tell you you’re a terrible person,” Blacknell told Beck, according to Reuters.
“Signs normally don’t bother me, but there’s a whiff of burning crosses to Trump’s,” Blacknell later explained.
“Respect for other opinion is fabric [sic] of the USA,” Beck said in response, via Twitter.
No significant problems have been reported at the polls, Lindberg said, though a slight discrepancy between Arlington’s voting instructions and those on the state-provided ballots are prompting some questions.
The instructions in the polling places say that voters may place an “X” in the bubble to mark their vote for a candidate. Virginia’s ballots have older instructions, telling voters to completely fill in the bubble. Either works just fine, said Lindberg.
“It’s just confused a few voters, that’s all,” she said.
After the jump: tweets from those commenting on the Trump signs around Arlington, as well as a tweet from this afternoon’s John Kasich rally at George Mason University in Virginia Square.
If you still have any paper Metro farecards sitting around, you’ll want to use them this week.
Starting Sunday at 7 a.m., Metro will stop accepting paper farecards at turnstiles and will only accept SmarTrip cards.
It’s one of the final steps in Metro’s phasing out of paper farecards, which the agency stopped selling Dec. 31. The very last step will happen this summer, when Metro stops accepting paper cards as trade-ins.
“If you still have a paper farecard or a Metrochek after June 30, 2016, congratulations, you have a Metro souvenir,” Metro said on its website.
In addition to online reminders, signs have been placed in local Metro stations informing riders of the changes.
Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is holding a Super Tuesday election day rally at George Mason University Law School in Virginia Square this afternoon.
The university is warning of potential traffic and parking issues around its Arlington campus.
“This event is open to students, faculty and staff, as well as the broader community,” GMU said in a press release. “Though we expect no changes to operations at Hazel Hall and the Arlington Campus, there are likely to be parking and traffic impacts associated with the event.”
“We expect additional traffic on campus on Tuesday as Founders Hall is a designated polling place for Arlington County for the Virginia Primary Election,” the university added.
The Arlington County Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint somewhere in the county Friday night.
ACPD says any driver suspected of DUI will have to pull over for additional observation and testing.
From a press release:
On Friday, March 4th, 2016, the Arlington County Police Department will conduct a joint sobriety checkpoint. These enforcement efforts are in support of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) National crackdown program on drunk driving that focuses on combining high-visibility enforcement with heightened public awareness through advertising and publicity.
Officers will stop all vehicles passing through the checkpoint and ask to see the licenses of drivers. Any driver suspected of operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs or alcohol will be directed to a safe area off the roadway for further observation and possible testing for intoxication.
The maximum penalty in Virginia for the first conviction for driving under the influence is 12 months in jail, a $2,500 fine and a 12-month suspension of driving privileges.
It’s March 1 — Not only is today the first day of March, with spring (March 20) and Daylight Saving Time (March 13) around the corner, but it’s also the Super Tuesday presidential primary day here in Virginia. Arlington’s 52 polling places opened at 6 a.m. and will close at 7 p.m. [Arlington County]
Committee of 100 to Discuss Racial Tensions — On Wednesday, March 9, the Arlington Committee of 100 will hold a discussion entitled “Are Arlington’s Police and Justice Systems Prepared to Respond to Community and Racial Tensions?” Among the speakers are Commonwealth’s Attorney Theo Stamos and Police Chief Jay Farr. [InsideNova]
Bowen McCauley Dance Performing at Kennedy Center — Arlington’s Bowen McCauley Dance company will be celebrating its 20th anniversary with performances at the Kennedy Center later this month. [WJLA]
It’s a Good Time to Lease an Office in Arlington — D.C.-based commercial real estate firm West, Lane & Schlager is advising companies to consider leasing office space in Arlington in the near future. The firm says the D.C. area is definitely a tenant’s market at the moment, but the tide will eventually turn. With vacancy rates stabilizing, companies can take advantage of lease concessions now, before the market turns in favor of landlords, the firm says. [Patch]
Four Courts Four Miler Coming Up — The popular annual Four Courts Four Miler race will take place Saturday morning, March 12. Registration is currently $40 and will, in part, benefit the Arlington County Police Benevolent Fund. As in previous years, those who beat the runner dressed up as a leprechaun — Ireland’s Four Courts manager Dave Cahill, a 3:10 marathon runner — will get a special gift from the pub. [Pacers Running]
The Super Tuesday primaries are upon us. On Tuesday, voters in Virginia and almost a dozen other states will head to the polls to select a Republican and a Democratic presidential nominee.
Will Hilary Clinton remain the Democratic favorite? Will Donald Trump retain his unlikely status as the Republican frontrunnner?
On Feb. 16, polls and statistics guru elections guru Nate Silver sat down with prominent George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen, as part of the “Conversations with Tyler” series at GMU’s Arlington campus.
The Mercatus Center at GMU has posted video (above) and a transcript of the discussion. Here are some of Silver’s predictions and observations.
On Silver’s initial Trump skepticism:
I got a little frustrated, because a lot of people were saying, “Trump’s instantly going to evaporate in the polls.” If you go back and look at what we wrote, we said, “That could happen, but there are also a lot of candidates – Pat Buchanan, and so forth, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum – who will get 20, 25, 30-something percent of the electorate, and we have a high-floor, low-ceiling type of candidate.”
Lots of unusual candidates have done well in early polls. Lots of unusual candidates have won Iowa or New Hampshire, not usually both, but one or the other. It’s the ability to consolidate the field after that, by becoming the consensus choice of the party that’s been more unusual. That assumption still might prove to be true.
On Marco Rubio’s chances:
I’ve been a Rubio optimist for a while, on the theory that he is the only candidate who really has appeal to all the various sectors and constituencies within the GOP, which may be a fraying party, but still, he has the highest favorability ratings in the party.
On Ted Cruz and the price of rigid ideology in the general election:
You can see that there’s a price for extremism. Not a price that can’t be overcome, if we go into a big recession or if Clinton or Bernie has huge problems, but Cruz would probably cost you three or four points relative to the median generic Republican.
On Trump’s potential pivot to the center in a general election:
But the most basic problem is that in an election between Sanders and Trump or Clinton and Trump, everything is quite left of center. Trump, when he was thinking about running as an independent in 1999-2000, had an eccentric platform. It involved single-payer health care, a wealth tax. He was anti-immigration, even then, but pro-choice.
He said explicitly, “I’m not bound by any party, really. I’ll probably reconsider my stances if I become the Republican nominee.”
On Bernie Sanders’ Democratic base of support:
Sanders, we haven’t really seen. Can he win states that are not very white and very liberal? Maybe he can. Nevada seems to be pretty close. I’m just saying, we haven’t really received that much information that would make you update your priors about Sanders all that much.
On Michael Bloomberg potentially entering the race as an independent candidate:
Obviously, in some ways, the climate could be as fertile as ever for some type of third candidate running, but Bloomberg, I don’t know. Number one, I’m not sure he differentiates all that well from Clinton, with whom he has a lot in common policy-wise, and Trump, with which he’s kind of the same character.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, County Board Chair Libby Garvey and Arlington Economic Development Director Victor Hoskins were among the officials on hand today to welcome the company to their new digs at 1220 N. Fillmore Street.
The Commonwealth and the county each provided $125,000 in economic incentives for the firm, which is planning to expand from 9 to 65 employees. Basket is investing $10 million on the new office and the expansion, officials said.
“This is exactly the kind of business we want to attract and grow here,” said Garvey.
The company decided to move to Arlington despite also being wooed by D.C.
“We looked at the number of jobs we would need, and how much we were supposed to grow, we decided we needed a lot more space,” said Andy Ellwood, the company’s president and co-founder and a former employee of the navigation startup Waze. “After moving out of our small coworking space we decided it was the right move for us.”
McAuliffe has been making frequentappearances in Arlington as of late, announcing various deals with tech companies either staying in or moving to the county.
“We’re trying to build the new Virginia economy, so we have to bring in new innovators,” McAuliffe told ARLnow.com. “I want us to be the tech capital of the United States of America. We have all the education and resources. It’s important that we become less reliant on the federal government.”
McAuliffe’s pitch to tech companies considering Arlington or elsewhere in the Commonwealth: “Virginia has very low taxes, a great education system, and it’s close to the federal government,” he said.
The press release from the governor’s office, after the jump.
Arlington Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in Arlington County. If you’d like to see your event featured, fill out the event submission form.
Come celebrate Leap Day with other young professionals, play some bingo and learn more about Thrive, a local nonprofit working to prevent homelessness in Arlington. The event is free to attend.
Join the Arlington County Democratic Committee (ACDC), Arlington Young Democrats (AYD) and Women’s Information Network (WIN) to watch the results of Super Tuesday. There will be democracy-themed drink specials and games.
Join the Arlington County Republican Committee and the Arlington Falls Church Young Republicans as we watch Republican primary election returns on Super Tuesday. Attendees are asked to contribute $5 to defray costs.
These indoor, underground bike races will be held every Wednesday in March. The course will be fast and fun for all abilities, and participants will compete for prizes while earning points toward being the best rider of the series.
LUNAFEST is a film festival of award-winning short films by, for and about women. The festival connects women, their stories and their causes through film and is a fundraiser for postpartum support and breast cancer causes.
A skating party, raffle, and online auction to raise funds for childhood cancer research. This fifth annual event for the Catherine Elizabeth Blair Memorial Foundation will be held at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston.
(Updated at 12:25 p.m.) Members of the media were denied access to a Lyon Park community meeting about the controversial plan to open a gun shop in the neighborhood Sunday night.
The meeting was attended by County Board Chair Libby Garvey, Vice Chair Jay Fisette, County Manager Mark Schwartz, Police Chief Jay Farr and Del. Patrick Hope. The owner of the planned gun store at 2300 N. Pershing Drive, Nova Armory, was reportedly out of town and unable to attend.
An ARLnow.com reporter who tried to attend the event, at the privately-owned Lyon Park Community Center, was not allowed in the building. A community member shut the door when the reporter tried to ask about the prohibition on media. Those working the door at the event checked IDs and only allowed Lyon Park and Ashton Heights residents inside.
A short time after seeking access, the reporter and almost a dozen other non-community members — an Arlington resident who runs an anti-gun-store Facebook page and several members of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League — were removed from the Lyon Park property by police upon a neighborhood representative’s request.
“Notice is hearby given that the County Board of Arlington County, Virginia, will NOT meet on Sunday, February 28, 2016 in the Lyon Park Community Center, 414 North Fillmore Street., at 7:00 P.M. or as soon thereafter for the purpose of attending a Lyon Park Community meeting to discuss NOVA Armory’s plans to open a firearms store at 2300 Pershing Dr,” the public notice read.
ARLnow.com reached out to the elected officials who attended the meeting, asking about what was discussed, but thus far none has responded on the record. On Friday, Arlington County issued a statement saying that due to state law, the county “does not have the authority to prohibit these sales or businesses.”
(Also in attendance at the meeting: Lyon Park resident, Planning Commission member and Democratic County Board challenger Erik Gutshall, who has said he’s “deeply concerned” with plans for the store.)
John Goldener, president of the Lyon Park Citizens Association, spoke to ARLnow.com after the meeting, which ran from 7-9 p.m. and was attended by about 140 residents, he said.
Goldener declined to provide details about the discussion, saying that the civic association purposely excluded outsiders because the meeting was intended to be a safe space for community members to discuss the gun store.
“All I can tell you is what the meeting was about,” Goldener said. “This was an opportunity for people in the community to have a safe, civil discussion.”
“The civic association’s role here is to be a facilitator,” Goldener added. “We don’t take a stance on this particular issue.”
Arlington County Police have made an arrest in the Aug. 1, 2015 sexual assault of a woman in the Buckingham neighborhood.
It was initially believed that the Aug. 1 case may have been related to another series of sexual assaults last summer. A suspect was arrested in October and charged in some of those crimes. (That suspect, Melvin Perez Bonilla, is still in jail and due in court today to face charges in a July 25 assault on N. Scott Street, police say.)
Investigators now believe that separate suspects were each responsible for a separate series of assaults.
Police say the man just taken into custody, 19-year-old Santos Efrain Vasquez-Lopez, may have also sexually assaulted women along the W&OD Trail. ACPD is asking anyone with information about him to come forward.
From a press release:
The Arlington County Police Department arrested and charged a 19 year-old subject with abduction with the intent to defile for his role in a sexual assault incident last summer. Santos Efrain Vasquez-Lopez, 19, of Arlington, VA is currently being held without bond in the Arlington County Detention Facility.
The attack occurred on August 1, 2015 in the 4300 block of N. Pershing Drive at approximately 11:26 p.m. As the 25-year-old victim was walking home, the suspect grabbed her from behind and pushed her to the ground. The suspect held her down, covered her mouth, and attempted to remove her shorts. The victim was able to bite one of the suspect’s hands before he fled the area on foot.
Investigators assigned to the Tactical Unit and detectives assigned to the Special Victims Unit were able to identify a suspect matching the description provided by the victim. Police were able to secure DNA analysis results from the state lab, confirming Vasquez-Lopez’s involvement in the incident. Tactical Unit officers took Vasquez-Lopez into custody at his residence in the late evening hours of February 24, 2016.
The Arlington County Police Department is investigating Vasquez-Lopez’s possible involvement in a series of assaults along the bike trail last summer and additional charges may be pending. Anyone who has information regarding this incident or concerning Vasquez-Lopez is asked to call Detective Bercovicz at 703.228.4235 or email [email protected]. To report information anonymously, contact the Arlington County Crime Solvers at 866.411.TIPS (8477).
