Author: Nicole Merlene

What’s Next with Nicole: Recycling Glass

By Nicole Merlene

What’s Next with Nicole is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

‘Tis the season for holiday parties — and the season of wine and beer bottles, sauce jars, you name it.

It is somewhat of a misconception that Arlington recently stopped recycling glass. We really have just started recycling glass in a different and more efficient way.

This year I am thankful that the Arlington County Board voted unanimously to join forces with the City of Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Prince William County to make our glass recycling more environmentally-friendly and cost-effective. Loudoun County voted this week to pilot the program.

There are two ways to properly dispose of glass since the change:

Preferred: Bring glass to the “Purple Bins”

In this process our glass is broken down and turned into pavement for Northern Virginia roads, bedding for drainage and stormwater pipes, and new glass materials, among other sustainable resources. This process is done at Fairfax County’s glass processing machine “Big Blue,” where 20 tons of glass can be crushed per hour to various grades of sand and gravel.

There are five Purple Bin locations to drop off glass for Arlington residents and businesses:

  1. Quincy Park (Orange/Silver Line Metro corridor accessible)
  2. Trades Center (Shirlington/Four Mile Run area accessible)
  3. Aurora Hills Community Center (Blue/Yellow Line Metro corridor accessible)
  4. Cherrydale Library (East Lee Highway area accessible)
  5. Lee Community Center (West Lee Highway area accessible)

Pro Tip: At the Trader Joe’s checkout there are dozens of wine boxes that you can take home with you, and at other grocery stores you can ask for a box for free. This will help you store glass safely and separately without anything breaking before your next trip to the Purple Bin. You can also keep a separate reusable grocery bag dedicated just to glass.

Put Glass in Your Curbside Trash Bin

Before the policy change, when you “recycled” your glass it was sorted out of the recycling facility and taken to the trash facility. By putting glass directly in the trash you save the county money by skipping the step of going through the recycle facility just to be transported by diesel truck to the trash facility it could have been at if you put it in the trash in the first place.

At the facility your glass is melted, mixed with combusted ash, and put in a landfill. In a bit of irony, if you do not take your glass to a Purple Bin it is better to put it in the curbside trash than in the blue recycle bin.

I am excited about this new program for two reasons:

  1. It exemplifies the best of what is possible in a green economy. It produces materials that are carbon intensive and generally used in public works or construction projects. The process also currently pays for itself making it cost neutral and potentially cost positive
  2. Our region worked together to create an economy of scale to the benefit of us all. Northern Virginia in the past year or two has begun partnering on everything from economic development and housing to waste disposal. Our continued coordination in various sectors will result in a more resilient region.

So far, the Big Blue glass recycling machine has processed 1,400 tons (2.8 million pounds) of glass, and Arlington has delivered 200 of those tons through our Purple Bins. I challenge our community to become a bigger percentage of that glass in the new year, and why not start with your holiday parties. Putting out that new wine box or reusable bag to collect your glass is the first step to start new habits, so try it out!

What’s Next: Shut Down Arlington’s Juvie Facility

By Nicole Merlene

What’s Next is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) “There was a single light on that I couldn’t turn off. I didn’t sleep while I was there.”

Below I will detail a discussion I had with someone, who for the purpose of this column I will refer to as “Alex,” about their time three years ago in the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center, located in Alexandria. The facility houses children and adolescents from Arlington, Alexandria, and Falls Church.

Alex was sent to the Juvenile Detention Center after two run-ins with the law. First, they were caught possessing less than an ounce of weed, and then another incident where they blew a .05 on a breathalyzer after being pulled over while on probation.

I will not go through the merits of Alex’s admittance to the facility, but rather detail the torturous conditions that Alex and hundreds of other Arlington children and teens have endured.

“After I got in the building through two cages with wire fencing, I was stripped, showered, and searched. My cell was completely concrete on all four sides and probably the size of a walk in closet. My thin mattress was built on concrete too and almost touched the joined toilet and sink. There was a slit of a window, but it was so high I couldn’t see out of it at all. There was a closed slit on the door that the guards gave me food through.”

For comparison purposes, in federal maximum security prison ADX Florence, also known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” inmates have more amenities than this facility. They are able to see out of a window facing outside, have a door window, as well as a personal radio, television, and the Bible. ADX holds Al-Qaeda terrorists, the Boston Marathon bomber, organized crime members, and mass murders. The Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center holds children who sell weed and have “juvenile DUIs”.

“We had one hour of recreation where I played basketball and one hour in a social area where they gave us lemonade. The rest of the time was spent back in the cell. Since the walls are thick concrete you couldn’t knock or talk to neighbors. I was very isolated. The guard barely walked by. If I had a health problem it wouldn’t have been good because they couldn’t even see in.”

If you are doing the math in your head, that is 22 hours in a cell alone. We define solitary confinement as being in a cell for 22 or more hours without human contact.

Now imagine being in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison while being tortured with a light that doesn’t turn off. This year Arlington kids collectively spent 2,893 days in this facility between January and September.

Luckily, the City of Alexandria has proposed a study to regionalize our juvenile detention facilities — but not for the reasons that you might think. This study was not started because of the torturous conditions, but rather, that it isn’t being filled. The study is called the Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Use of the Northern Virginia Regional Juvenile Detention Center and Alternatives.

There is a public meeting TONIGHT from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Arlington Central Library auditorium (1015 N. Quincy Street). There is also an online survey you can take here.

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What’s Next: End Prohibition Era Laws in Virginia

By Nicole Merlene

What’s Next with Nicole is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow. 

Antiquated Prohibition-era laws are still alive and well in Virginia.

These regulations have become a burden on restaurants and entertainment-oriented businesses operating in the Commonwealth. For Arlington and Northern Virginia at large, this means lost business opportunities to competitors in Washington, D.C. that don’t have to abide by such outdated regulations.

Democrats this past session passed a law that allows restaurants to merely advertise happy hour but opposed numerous other reforms. For example, the Virginia Alcoholic and Beverage Commission, or ABC, requires that 45% of total gross sales at restaurant establishments be comprised of food and nonalcoholic beverages while alcohol purchases should not exceed more than 55% of sales.

Senate Minority Leader, Dick Saslaw, has said,  “If you can’t meet that ratio, you ain’t running a restaurant, you are flat running a bar. If you want saloons in Virginia, say so.”

So, here I am, saying so. We would like not only saloons, but restaurant wedding venues, music and dance venues, cigar lounges, cocktail bars, bottomless mimosas, and the like. A few examples of overburdensome regulations in Virginia that I hope Democrats will support overturning or reforming include:

Food to Alcohol Ratio

Virginia ABC’s 45/55% ratio rule should be overturned. The whole concept of having such a ratio to avoid drunkenness in our community is laughable. If you want to have a drink at a restaurant, you can have a drink. We are no longer in Prohibition. Bartenders are required to cut patrons off if they’ve had too much, but none are going to tell customers “sorry we’ve hit our food to drink ratio, so we’re going to have to stop serving you.”

What this really does is stifle certain business models like music venues (think: U Street Music Hall or 9:30 Club), cocktail bars (think: The Gibson or Left Door), art museums (think: Artechouse), and more. While I think we should wash the ratio altogether, Democrats have actually opposed even a reduction of the ratio, which seems irrational.

Open Bars for Events in Restaurants

Restaurants are also banned from allowing open bars for private parties. Want to host a corporate or conference event and provide an open bar? Head to D.C. Want to have your wedding reception at a local restaurant? Tough luck.

Wonder why Arlington’s New Year’s Eve celebrations are barely worth the cost, and make a large market of customers cross the river every December 31st for unlimited drink passes? Taking away this regulation would allow for a potentially large revenue generator and perhaps even help reduce the number of ARLnow articles we see about restaurant closings. This is silly, let’s scrap it.

Drink Specials

Drink specials such as bottomless or “2 for 1” deals are banned in Virginia. These regulations are essentially obsolete because they do allow for sort of bottomless where you pay a fixed price for your meal and as little as a penny for each drink. This rule has no tangible benefits and unnecessarily hinders restaurants from marketing competitively.

These regulations seem like one of those things that we will look back on one day and think to ourselves about how silly things used to be. During the next legislative session, I encourage our delegation to think about these issues in a new light and finally overturn these antiquated laws 86 years after Prohibition ended.

Nicole Merlene is an Arlington native and former candidate for Virginia State Senate. She has served as a leader in the community on the boards of the Arlington County Civic Federation and North Rosslyn Civic Association, as an Arlington Economic Development commissioner, in neighborhood transportation planning groups, and as a civic liaison to the Rosslyn Business Improvement District.

What’s Next with Nicole: An Introduction

By Nicole Merlene

What’s Next with Nicole is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.

My name is Nicole Merlene and I’d like to welcome you to my new column, What’s Next with Nicole. Thank you to the ARLnow team for inviting me to write this regular opinion column.

I plan to write about a wide range of topics that impact our community. My hope is to not only provide a forward-thinking perspective on current policy considerations, but also to shed light on less publicized topics.

A bit about me: I am a 27-year-old Arlington native. I grew up in the Tara-Leeway Heights neighborhood, where I attended Glebe Elementary School, A.T.S., Swanson Middle School, and Yorktown High School. Currently, I am a renter living in a “market-rate affordable” garden apartment in Virginia Square.

This spring I ran for Virginia State Senate in the 31st district to represent areas of Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun counties. I have also served as the Vice President for both the Arlington County Civic Federation and North Rosslyn Civic Association, and currently serve on the Arlington Economic Development Commission. Prior to my run for office, I was Policy Director for the international trade association, Invest in the USA.

Arlington has one of the most educated populations in the country and I relish the opportunity to productively advance our public discourse in a new way. This column will focus on providing solutions rather than simply presenting problems, and while the solutions presented may not always be perfect, the goal is to bring thoughtfulness and a forward-looking perspective to local issues.

It is a wonderful thing that in contrast to what is happening on the national stage, our local community is able to have respectful conversations on substantive policy topics. I’m honored to be writing this column for ARLnow and look forward to kicking off my first full piece next week.

Nicole Merlene is an Arlington native and former candidate for Virginia State Senate. She has served as a leader in the community on the boards of the Arlington County Civic Federation and North Rosslyn Civic Association, as an Arlington Economic Development commissioner, in neighborhood transportation planning groups, and as a civic liaison to the Rosslyn Business Improvement District.