Ma rc h 1 0 - 16, 2016
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FOU N D ED 1991 • VOL. XXVI N O. 3
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A last-second score gave the George Mason High School Mustang boys basketball team a 74-72 win over Graham High in the Virginia State Tournament quarterfinals last Saturday, sending the team to the Final Four in Richmond this Friday. SEE SPORTS, PAGE 30
F.C. Chamber Launches ‘Diversity Inclusion’ Outreach to Minorities Off to Fast Start, Plan Attracts Area Muslims & Others
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
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at City Hall. Lucki Thai, a few doors down, is set to open at 240 W. Broad, the former location of the ground floor Curves. While preparing to open, the restaurant has not yet requested a final inspection from the City. The highly-anticipated Northside Social II restaurant at 205 Park Avenue, across from City Hall at the former Blue and Grey building, awaits action by City staff to “wrap up a final review of its revised and final site plan,” with building permits due any day. The demolition of the old site is currently ongoing, and new construction could begin in early April.
A new “diversity inclusion effort” by the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce has the Northern Virginia minority-ownership business community abuzz, and apparently causing at least one national U.S. Chamber-linked association to rudely expel the F.C. Chamber’s executive director Sally Cole not once, but twice from its Facebook group because she said the outreach extended to Muslims. Chamber treasurer Michael S. Diener, a long time Chamber activist who runs a local CPA practice in Falls Church, described the early success of the initiative to the monthly meeting of the local Chamber’s board of directors Tuesday morning. He said that 10 people attended the first meeting of the group and already three have petitioned to join the Chamber as a result. They were voted in unanimously at the Tuesday meeting. “We get to know them, they get to know us. It tears down walls. That’s the idea,” Diener said. While the initial focus has been on reaching out to Muslim-owned and other Arab-owned businesses, the local Chamber has for decades sought to break down such walls to Vietnamese-American owned businesses based in Falls Church’s world famous Eden Center, with limited success so far. But this latest push could form the basis for overcoming historic limits, and the active VietnameseAmerican Chamber of Commerce, many of whose members are still reeling from recent years’ police
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Police completed a cautiouslyexecuted student evacuation and sweep of Falls Church’s George Mason High School, one among a number of area schools that received recorded bomb threat phone calls last Friday. An invesigation turned up nothing. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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It’s 2 a.m. The bar is closing. Republicans have had a series of strong and nasty Donald Trump cocktails. Suddenly Ted Cruz is beginning to look kind of attractive. SEE PAGE 12
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John Mayall wants people to find a way to care so badly that he named his last album, released in 2015, Find A Way To Care. SEE PAGE 33
INDEX
Editorial.................6 Letters...............6, 8 News & Notes 10-11 Comment ..12-14, 27 Food & Dining 15-26 Calendar ........28-29
Sports .................30 Business News ...34 Classified Ads ....36 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........37 Critter Corner......38
400 N. Washington Office Site Back On for Redevelopment BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
Falls Church City Planning Director Jim Snyder announced at the work session of the Falls Church City Council Monday that the Wheeler Group, which had abandoned plans to rebuild the all-office building at 400 N. Washington St., has decided to “reactivate their application” for a height waiver at the site. The news came as the latest in a series of business development updates reported at the meeting and in the City’s Economic Development Office bulletin. Among the new developments reported are the following: The popular long-standing Falls
Church business, the CD Cellar, has relocated from its cramped location at 709 W. Broad to new digs at for former location of the 7 Stars convenience store at 105 Park Avenue. The new location puts the seller of used CDs, vinyl and more within easy walking distance of the State Theatre regional live music venue as well as Cue Recording Studio in the same building. CD Cellar’s former location is being filled by Design Frames, relocating from its former 101 Rowell Court location. Rare Bird Roasters hope to be open in mid to late May at 230 W. Broad, the former location of the Tutti Frutti frozen yogurt shop next to Doodlehopper. Building permit plans have been submitted