A man is now facing a series of charges after police say he started masturbating inside a business near the intersection of N. Glebe Road and Route 50.
County police claim that 37-year-old Durrell Carter of Arlington walked into the business around 1 p.m. last Wednesday (Aug. 22), when he began “exposing himself and masturbating.” The block where the incident occurred is home to a McDonald’s, a Dunkin Donuts and a car dealer, among other shops.
Carter is now charged with indecent exposure, possession of marijuana, identity theft and possession of a fake ID.
He’s set for a Sept. 24 hearing in Arlington General District Court.
Full details from a county crime report:
INDECENT EXPOSURE, 2018-08220138, Unit block of N. Glebe Road. At approximately 1:16 p.m. on August 22, police were dispatched to the report of a male exposing himself. Upon arrival, it was determined that the victim observed the male suspect allegedly exposing himself and masturbating inside a business. Durrell Carter, 37, of Arlington, Va., was arrested and charged with Indecent Exposure, Possession of Marijuana, Identity Theft and Possession of a Fake Identification. He was held on no bond.
Arlington’s opened up another protected bike lane, this time connecting Rosslyn and Courthouse.
This newest lane runs along Wilson Blvd, between N. Quinn Street and N. Courthouse Road near the post office in the area. The county previously built a protected lane between N. Oak and N. Quinn Streets back in 2016.
Today's #betterbikelane update: Wilson Boulevard has a brand new protected bike lane!
The county’s added several new protected bike lanes this summer, including one along N. Veitch Street near this latest addition, as part of summer paving work around Arlington.
A vandalized sign near the intersection of S. Arlington Mill Drive and S. Walter Reed Drive
A vandalized sign near the intersection of S. Arlington Mill Drive and S. Walter Reed Drive
For the last few days, an electronic sign meant to inform drivers about some upcoming roadwork in the Shirlington area has displayed a different message instead: “Ligma.”
A prankster seems to have reprogrammed the sign, located near the intersection of S. Walter Reed Drive and S. Arlington Mill Drive, sometime in the past few days. A tipster told ARLnow the sign’s been changed since at least this past Wednesday (Aug. 22).
The word itself seems to be a reference to a popular meme among fans of the video game Fortnite — its origins are perhaps best not explained on a family website.
When informed of the vandalized sign by ARLnow, county transportation spokeswoman Jessica Baxter explained that it belongs to a contractor working on improvements to S. Walter Reed Drive as part of a bid to “alert the public of the start of upcoming work.”
“The sign is supposed to reference the upcoming construction and date range of work,” Baxter said. “We’ve alerted our contractor to correct the sign as soon as possible.”
Construction on that work is supposed to start in early September, and last for close to a year after that.
With its bevy of parks and outdoor eateries, Arlington ranks as the most dog friendly place in the country, according to a new analysis from Yelp.
The reviews website placed the county number one in its new set of rankings, released Friday to mark National Dog Day, ahead of cities like Tampa, Florida and West Hollywood, California.
Yelp’s analysts came up with the rankings by examining its internal traffic data on pages for parks and businesses.
“To compile this list, we scored cities based on the percentage of page views in the ‘Active’ categories that are for dog parks, percentage of page views in the ‘Pets’ categories that are for dog walkers, and the percentage of businesses in the restaurants, bars, coffee, hotels and beaches categories for which we had data on whether they indicated they allowed dogs,” Yelp’s Jordan Bantista wrote in a blog post.
Yelp specifically singled out Ambar in Clarendon, Celtic House on Columbia Pike and The Paramount Cafe in Crystal City as reviewed restaurants that might of of interest to dog owners.
The site only ranked two cities for each state to ensure geographic diversity on the list. (Arlington is, of course, technically a county, though it is often included in lists of cities as a census-designated place.)
The weather is set to be downright perfect this weekend, so get yourself outside ASAP.
The forecast calls for these balmy, delightfully un-humid conditions to last through Sunday, so enjoy it while you can. Perhaps it’ll be fine weather for a bike ride, or any of the other events going on around the county this weekend.
But should you find yourself online, somehow, check out our most popular stories of the past week:
A sign posted on the door of Cassatt’s on Lee Highway
Just a few weeks after new owners took over, Cassatt’s Kiwi Cafe and Gallery has suddenly stopped serving customers these last few days.
As of this afternoon (Friday) a sign posted on the door of the New Zealand-themed eatery (4536 Lee Highway) informed visitors that the restaurant is closed, even though its posted hours would indicate it should be open. A tipster told ARLnow that the restaurant was similarly shuttered yesterday (Thursday), fearing its long-term future.
Longtime owner Art Hauptmann, who opened Cassatt’s 16 years ago, recently sold the restaurant to a pair of new owners: Mario and Marco Jelencovich. While the pair’s family has worked on other restaurants in the D.C. area before, Hauptmann previously said he was unsure of their plans for the eatery, though he hoped they’d keep the business going as usual.
The Jelencoviches haven’t responded to repeated requests for comment about Cassatt’s future, and no one answered the phone at the restaurant Friday.
County permit records show that Mario Jelencovich has successfully won a business license for the establishment, and had it inspected by the county recently, though they offer few other details.
A Maryland man is now facing a slew of charges after he allegedly fled a traffic stop along I-66, then crashed into a car carrying three people in Williamsburg on Tuesday (Aug. 21).
Virginia State Police and county police tried to pull over a 2017 Honda Civic taking the exit ramp from westbound I-66 toward N. Sycamore Street when the driver refused to stop, according to state police spokeswoman Corinne Geller.
The car “sped away at a high rate of speed,” Geller said, and then struck another car near the intersection of N. Sycamore Street and Williamsburg Blvd. The driver of the Honda, subsequently identified as 21-year-old Brandon Andrew Lee of Ft. Washington, Maryland, fled the scene of the crash on foot.
A state trooper arrested Lee soon afterward “without further incident,” Geller said.
Lee is now charged with possession of stolen property with intent to sell, one felony count of eluding police, driving on a revoked license and two drug charges. He’s set for a hearing in Arlington General District Court on Sept. 20, and is currently being held in the county jail.
The adult and two children inside the other car involved in the crash were not injured, Geller said.
Photo courtesy of the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office
Williamsburg frozen yogurt shop Zinga is now under new management, though loyal customers shouldn’t expect to see too many changes.
The store, located in the Williamsburg Shopping Center at 2914 N. Sycamore Street, will now be operated by Yobe, a Louisiana-based frozen yogurt chain. One of its new managers, Brittany Uribe, told ARLnow that the Williamsburg location will retain the Zinga name, however.
“Everyone was happy with the way it is, so why change it?” she said.
Zinga, which operates half a dozen other shops around Northern Virginia, first opened the Arlington location in 2013. But Uribe says its owners wanted to get out of the business, and sold their stake to Yobe instead.
She doesn’t plan to change much about the shop itself, other than adding a few new flavors; cookie dough is first on her list.
Uribe also hopes to start offering a few new specials to lure customers in, like offering yogurt for half-off after 6 p.m. and charging a flat fee for cups (no weigh-in required) on Wednesdays.
There’s good news for lovers of laughter — Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse is rolling out its lineup of comedians for the fall and winter.
The Drafthouse (2903 Columbia Pike) has confirmed performances from a variety of well-known stand-ups over the coming months.
Darrell Hammond, a staple of “Saturday Night Live” with a famous impression of President Donald Trump, will swing by from Dec. 7-8.
The venue will also play host to Natasha Leggero from Nov. 16-17. She’s the creator and star of Comedy Central’s “Another Period,” and recently co-starred in the Showtime series “DICE.”
Earlier that month, SNL veteran and longtime TV actor Jay Mohr will appear at the Drafthouse. He’s slated to perform from Nov. 1-2.
Yvonne Orji, co-star of the HBO comedy “Insecure,” will perform from Oct. 5-7. Alex Moffat, a current SNL cast member, will appear tonight (Aug. 24) and Saturday (Aug. 25).
The Drafthouse has its full lineup of events available on its website.
Full Arlington Memorial Bridge Shutdown Planned — One of the main links from the county into D.C. will close entirely for the weekend of Sept. 15-17, as workers get ready to start major repair efforts. Officials are warning of rolling lane closures after that, with another full shutdown sometime this fall. [Washington Post]
County Police See a String of Wheel Thefts — Since June 1, Arlington police say they’ve seen thieves make off with the tires and rims of five different cars. Many of the thefts have been concentrated in the Pentagon City and Crystal City area, where airbags have also started vanishing. [WTOP]
Arlington GOP Mulls Position on Bond Referenda — County Republicans will decide next month on whether to take a position on the more than $230 million in bonds that will go before voters this fall. Arlingtonians haven’t rejected a local bond on the ballot since 1979. [InsideNova]
Nearby: Parking Pains Plague New Northside Social Location — The second location of the Clarendon cafe that opened in Falls Church earlier this summer has created some huge parking headaches, including a 13,000 percent increase in cars towed from nearby lots. [Falls Church News-Press]
County Board members Christian Dorsey and Libby Garvey and help SyLearn CEO Jay Chandok cut the ribbon on his new business.
SyLearn staffers, Arlington officials and family members chat at the grand opening of SyLearn in Virginia Square.
SyLearn’s computer labs in Virginia Square
While most ribbon cuttings for new businesses around Arlington tend to be full of pomp and circumstance, SyLearn’s grand opening in a modest Virginia Square office building Wednesday was a family affair.
CEO Jay Chandok, who helped found the new IT training company, busily urged guests to help themselves to a full buffet, as the daughters of Chandok and other staff members snapped pictures of new arrivals with iPhones. One made sure to introduce each visitor to one of her dolls, which she’d given a Hawaiian name: Leilani.
The event, much like SyLearn itself, was relatively small in scale. But Arlington officials say arrival of such businesses in the county is just as important as some of the bigger names economic development staffers are focused on these days.
“People think that they spend all their time on the Amazons and Nestles of the world, and while those are certainly important, this is really the bulk of what they do,” County Board Vice Chair Christian Dorsey told ARLnow. “It’s these small businesses that we hope will become big businesses someday.”
Chandok says the county indeed helped connect him with real estate brokers as he searched for a home for his new business, which was born out of another, similar program he worked on in Arlington.
He landed on a suite in an office building at 3330 Washington Blvd. It sits just behind George Mason University’s Arlington campus, but a bit off the beaten path of the bustling Rosslyn-Ballston corridor — Dorsey expects that certainly helped “lower the cost of entry a bit.”
Chandok hopes to eventually start hosting as many as 200 students each year in the space, with a pool of eight instructors to help them earn certifications on the latest software, or even make a career change and embrace IT.
“We’re looking to help people who aren’t going through four-year institutions, and we’re not bound by the same red tape as they are,” Chandok said. “We can help career changers, or career upgraders. Anyone who’s looking to test the waters and see what else is out there.”
With a legion of federal agencies, not to mention contractors, nearby, Chandok surely won’t lack potential customers. Dorsey also hopes that the county’s school system will consistently “provide a pipeline of talented students” interested in IT, noting that “we can only do so much” when it comes to career education.
Board member Libby Garvey, a longtime School Board member herself, also pointed out that SyLearn could be a perfect fit for the many veterans in Arlington, should they want to build on the tech training they received in the military.
“They have incredible talent that we need to tap into,” Garvey said.
With that sort of pool of would-be students available, Dorsey expects to be attending another ribbon cutting for SyLearn sooner, rather than later.
“As he grows, I want you to find him a bigger space,” he implored the economic development staff in attendance.
A man is now facing a series of charges after police say he started masturbating inside a business near the intersection of N. Glebe Road and Route 50.
