Residential Parking Permit sign in Arlington (staff photo)
Residents will have to wait until May to apply for a permit to use on-street parking in their neighborhood.
Two weeks ago Monday, Arlington County opened up applications for its Residential Permit Parking program. RPP restricts parking in certain residential areas near commercial corridors, typically allowing residents and their guests to park during the day while those without permits have to look elsewhere.
Some one hundred applications were processed, but within hours some residents began experiencing issues.
A few reached out to ARLnow, frustrated about the platform timing out and otherwise not handling their requests.
The county informed RPP households on Wednesday, April 5 that it would be pushing back the start of the application season to the week of April 10, which was last week. Yesterday (Monday), the county told ARLnow it now aims to resume the online application process on the first of May.
“We are still working with our vendor to resolve technical issues with the online permit application system,” Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Katie O’Brien said. “Due to these unresolved issues, we are now targeting the week of May 1 to have our RPP renewal applications available online.”
“We apologize for the continued delay but want to make sure that the system functions correctly for our customers,” O’Brien said, noting that customers will be receiving an update as well.
Normally, the county would begin checking for updated parking permit stickers for the 2023-24 season on July 1. With the delays, enforcement will be pushed back to Aug. 1 “to ensure that RPP materials will get to customers well ahead of when they’re needed.”
Last year, some residents reported not getting their materials ahead of the start of enforcement. They were worried they would be ticketed for not having documentation, though they said they had applied and paid for the stickers. Arlington County issued some temporary tags that people could use until their materials came.
Residents need to apply in advance to allow for enough time for the materials to be printed and sent out, but some were impacted by a delayed printing order, ARLnow was told at the time. Last year, the application process was also delayed, to allow extra time to fine tune what was then new software.
For those wishing to place orders immediately, in-person application and renewal services are available in Room 214 at the county government headquarters, located at 2100 Clarendon Blvd, O’Brien said. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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A new restaurant might be coming to the old Rincome Thai space on Columbia Pike (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
A new restaurant might be coming to the old Rincome Thai space on Columbia Pike (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
A new restaurant may be moving into the former home of Rincome Thai on Columbia Pike.
A business going by the name “Yoi Yoi” has applied for a permit to serve alcohol at 3030 Columbia Pike, according to Virginia ABC records. That was until recently the address of Rincome Thai, which occupied the corner space inside the Days Inn for nearly four decades. It closed in February due to the owners retiring.
Currently, Rincome signage remains up at 3030 Columbia Pike, and there are chairs, tables, and a bar still inside the space.
Details about Yoi Yoi and when it might open remain spotty. The individual listed as the owner of Yoi Yoi also appears to own a noodle and sushi restaurant in D.C.’s Tenleytown neighborhood called “Absolute Noodle.”
ARLnow has reached out to the owner several times but has not heard back as of publication.
Employees at the Days Inn that the restaurant is connected to were also unaware of any details about the restaurant moving in. Rincome Thai’s former owner did confirm to ARLnow that another eatery was taking over but didn’t know any other information beyond that.
Whatever is moving into the Columbia Pike space will have big shoes to fill. Rincome Thai was well-known and popular for the better part of nearly 40 years. Owned by two Korean-American sisters, the restaurant fused two cuisines together creating a unique menu that had a loyal neighborhood following.
But the owners felt that it was time to retire earlier this year.
“My sister and I can still walk and enjoy going on vacation,” co-owner Mihee Pansiri said. “I don’t want to quit when I can’t walk. Then, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
Local crime author Bill Schweigart (photo courtesy of Bill Schweigart )
Bill Schweigart is always thinking about the best place for a dead body.
The Arlington-based author, who lives in the Barcroft neighborhood, could be taking a walk on nearby trails, grabbing a bite at a local restaurant, or even out with his wife, but he’s always looking for the next local spot to set a crime.
“I’ll be out on a bike ride or a date with my wife, and we’ll be strolling somewhere, and I’ll say ‘Oh, that would be a great place to drop a body,’” Schweigart told ARLnow. “Now, that’s not the most romantic thing to say on a date, but my wife knows I’m a crime writer.”
Schweigart is the author of five books, including The Guilty One, which was just released last month. What makes his novels unique, at least to locals, is that he makes a point to base many of them in places he frequents in Arlington and Alexandria.
That might mean a biking path he uses often, the woods behind his house in Barcroft, or even a pizza place he likes.
“In the Guilty One… I shout out Fairlington Pizza,” Schweigart said. “I put a lot of different cameos [in my books]. As much local flavor as I can include, I do that just because it makes it more fun.”
The Guilty One tells the story of an Alexandria Police Department detective who helped stop an active shooter but can’t remember how he did it. Six months later, while running on the W&OD Trail, he finds a body in a tree that possibly reveals the truth of what happened that day.
While a good portion of the book takes place in Alexandria, Fairlington figures prominently in the story as well.
“I will say some deadly shenanigans occur in Fairlington,” Schweigart said.
The Guilty One written by local crime writer Bill Schweigart (photo courtesy of Bill Schweigart )
The Guilty One isn’t his only book where familiar locales are plot points. His second book, The Beast of Barcroft, is named after the neighborhood he’s lived in since 2008.
Schweigart explained that the simple reason why he includes so many local spots is that it’s easy and fun to “write what I know.” Plus, Arlington’s real-life diversity in terms of neighborhoods, settings, and residents makes it an ideal fictional backdrop.
“This place is a great place because you can write any kind of story,” he said. “You’ve got gleaming high rises. You have trails and wilderness. You’ve got politics. You’ve got the rich and powerful. You have the not-rich and the not-powerful. And they are all colliding and living pretty close together in the shadow of the nation’s capital. And it’s just a great engine for stories.”
It’s been a busy few months for Schweigart, not even accounting for his day job working for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Earlier in the year, a James Patterson-led collection of short stories to which Schweigart contributed was released. He first started working on his story “Women and Children First” with the legendary writer prior to the pandemic, but it took some time for the book 3 Days to Live to come out, due to the number of projects Patterson has his hands in.
For Schweigart, it typically takes about a year for him to write a book. It took him four years, though, to finish his first book, Slipping the Cable. He came away from that experience with a valuable lesson that he now passes along to other aspiring writers.
“Write every day. I learned that the hard way,” he said. “It does not have to be a huge word count, but if you establish a daily practice, the words just come easier over the long run.”
As for what’s next, Schweigart said he has already completed a sequel to The Guilty One and is talking with the publisher about it now. Asked whether readers can expect even more well-trodden local spots in this next book, Schweigart enthusiastically answered.
