Sam Machmour was traveling eastbound on the 1800 block of L St NW en route to do some holiday shopping when a man driving a rental car sideswiped the Downtown D.C. resident.

“She’s been riding for over a year now and she’s never had an issue,” said the scooterist’s husband, Karan Machmour. “This is the first time she’s been in an accident.”

First responders on the scene transported the victim to the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital to have her injuries assessed. Karan Machmour said his wife was “shaken up” after the incident, and complained of lower back pain and a headache.

Sam Machmour, who frequently uses the city’s e-scooter program to commute and run errands around the district, told police that she was just feet from her destination when she was knocked off her BIRD e-scooter by a dark, slow-moving vehicle.

“She was almost there,” said Karan Machmour, pointing to the store’s Christmas window display that shone colorful lights onto the site of the accident. “If you look at the car’s impact, you can see that she almost made it through.”

Police on the scene told 91���� that the driver was emerging from a parking garage when he failed to yield in time to avoid hitting the scooterist. The vehicle sustained minor damage to its right headlight.

The driver of the vehicle declined to comment for this piece.

Accidents involving e-scooters have been on the rise in Washington, D.C. and across the country, for several years, and have sparked conversations about traffic safety and how to regulate the popular ride-sharing option.

Several cities, along with the district, have to regulate e-scooter use within the city’s borders, including laws limiting the speed at which the devices can travel and where the scooters can be ridden.

Currently, six different companies, including Lyft and JUMP by Lime, are permitted to operate nearly 13,000 e-scooters in the district, according to the .

Scooters and bikes are allowed to ride on sidewalks in Washington except for in the nation’s capital’s highly congested Central Business District, where the accident involving Machmour took place.

Today, nearly 3 out of every 5 scooter riders who are hospitalized in the capital city are injured while riding on the sidewalk, and roughly a third of those riders got those injuries in areas where sidewalk-riding is banned, according to a .

Researchers from the same study compared their findings to existing data on cycling injuries and found that scooterists have higher rates of injuries than those traveling by bike.

The Metropolitan Police Department can fine scooterists if they are found to be riding on the sidewalk in the Central Business District; however, the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles that zero tickets were issued to scooterists or people cycling on sidewalks in the area in 2019.

“She had just gotten on the sidewalk to go into the Nordstrom Rack,” said Karan Machmour. “She wouldn’t normally do that.”

Police, firefighters and EMTs shut down two lanes of traffic following the incident for roughly a half-hour, causing a slowdown in the busy neighborhood during rush hour.

No charges were filed against the driver or scooterist at the time of the crash.

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When they stepped outside, the couple noticed a package sitting on their doorstep— the box ripped into pieces and all of its contents removed.

“The package that was stolen was delivered about a half-hour before we went to the market,” said Low. “In the past, the delivery man had usually rung the doorbell when he delivered packages, but he stopped doing that, so sometimes there are packages out there that we don’t know about.”

When Low began to review footage captured by his , he was able to catch a glimpse of the person that made off with one of the newly married couple’s wedding gifts, but the description of the thief wasn’t the only thing Low gleaned from the camera.

It turns out, video footage captured the couple falling victim to three different porch pirates in a matter of weeks.

91���� conducted an investigation into package thefts in Dupont Circle neighborhood using data from , and found that thefts are up by more than 40% in the area compared to the fall of 2020. The Metropolitan Police Department expects these numbers to continue to rise as the neighborhood enters the holiday season, leaving residents seeking a solution to the nation-wide issue.

‘The best time to be a crook’

Houses jam-packed with glittering gifts. Mailboxes stuffed with holiday cards. Porches cluttered with last-minute presents. Americans send more packages between than any other time of the year, and more deliveries mean more opportunities for mail theft.

“Everyone’s walking around with their face covered up; this is like the best time to be a crook,” said Lt. Farid Fawzi, who patrols the Dupont Circle neighborhood for the MPD. “Guys put the mask on and pull a hoodie up and suddenly now we see are just a set of eyes like in the movies.”

Shoppers became more vulnerable to mail theft when millions turned to the digital marketplace to purchase goods and gifts at the start of the pandemic, which resulted in more than falling victim to mail theft during 2020’s holiday season alone.

Now, a year later, the threat of another stolen holiday season for Dupont Circle residents could be costly.

While some online retailers offer reimbursements for customers whose items are stolen, many are left to recoup the cost of the items themselves. One Dupont Circle resident reported having $1000 worth of goods stolen from packages in her apartment’s lobby in Oct., and has received just $200 in refunds.

Companies today typically offer tracking information for shipped goods that alert customers when their items have been delivered, but Fawzi said that sometimes, porch pirates are one step ahead of residents.

“[Thieves] watch the delivery driver exit their trucks, walk up to the house, throw an item down, jump in their truck and take off,” said Fawzi. “By the time you get that notification, somebody has already picked your package up.”

Low said that after falling victim to package theft on multiple occasions, he no longer has items sent to his home. Instead, he has packages delivered to his nearby office, which monitors incoming mail and requires a signature to retrieve items.

Fawzi urged other Dupont residents to do the same.

“You have to use common sense, and you should exercise the same amount of caution you would if you were leaving a gold brick on the seat of your car,” said Fawzi. “No matter how valuable the package is… the criminal just sees a box that could be potentially filled with something.”

Although that online retailers pocketed more than $8.9 billion in sales on Black Friday this year alone, the holidays can drive some Americans to take desperate measures to stay afloat.

“When some people see a package, to them, it’s solving a problem,” said Patrice Webb, who lives at the intersection of North Dupont and U Street. “It might be monetary, it could be psychological.”

Since Webb purchased her home in the neighborhood in 2011, she has spoken to a number of neighbors about the issue of mail theft— something she’s witnessed firsthand on numerous occasions.

She found many of the porch pirates targeting houses on the block were a part of the community and lived in low-income housing units in the neighborhood. Oftentimes these residents lack resources, Webb said, which keeps them in the cycle of poverty and drives them to commit crime.

“We don’t have appropriate affordable housing and we don’t educate well,” said Webb. “So here we are in 2021 living in these affluent neighborhoods, going out to dinner, online shopping… but those in need are invisible.”

Researchers attribute high rates of package theft in the area to its compact density and its residents’ clashing income demographics, and a new study using crime data from the FBI found that those living in the nation’s capital are the most to be targeted by porch pirates.

Dupont resident Ivor Gullivor, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than a decade, said buildings without concierge desks are more vulnerable to package theft, as there is no one to oversee incoming deliveries and those who enter the building.

After a slew of package thefts at his apartment complex, Gullivor, who at the time sat on the apartment’s board, was in search of a cost-effective solution to the problem.

“A lot of these buildings have glass front doors,” said Gullivor, which allows porch pirates on the prowl to see packages sitting unwatched inside the building. “People will ring the doorbell impersonating an Amazon delivery man or follow someone inside the building and begin to slash packages open.”

When Gullivor’s apartment complex swapped its door to one with frosted glass, he said the problem ceased almost immediately. It’s been almost two years since the change, and Gullivor said the building hasn’t had a reported theft since.

The solution to the package theft problem must be a multipronged approach, according to Dupont residents, who say making simple changes to safeguard deliveries is just one step toward preventing stolen mail.

“I love my neighborhood, and [package theft] is a stressor for sure,” said Webb. “But at the same time, until our society fixes our s—-, frankly, it’s par for the course.”

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For those with a medical marijuana card, just head inside Natural Holistic Healing Center, flash your proof of a prescription for pot, select your favorite product and be on your way.

But, it turns out that accessing marijuana is just as easy without a doctor’s note.

Anyone over 21 walking through the Circle can head into one of the neighborhood’s six gifting operations. Patrons can pick out their favorite BIC lighter or bumper sticker, hand over some cash, and walk out the door with a free cannabis “gift” of their choosing in an inconspicuous to-go bag.

Map of cannabis distribution in Dupont Circle

“It’s easy, and it should be!” said longtime Dupont resident George McKissick.

Whether or not this is legal is a complicated question, but its answer may not be for long. For the first time in the District’s history, the possibility of complete legalization of cannabis looms in the city’s near future.

Despite widespread calls for the full legalization of marijuana by Washington residents for decades, conservatives in the federal government have thwarted efforts to legalize the drug in the nation’s capital since voters first placed the issue on the docket in 1998.

In 2014, D.C. voters passed a ballot measure spearheaded by cannabis rights activist Adam Eidinger, which granted Washingtonians the right to possess, consume, grow and gift small amounts of cannabis for personal use within the District’s borders.

“It felt like we had liberated ourselves,” said Eidinger, who proposed Initiative 71 after police raided his smoke shop Capitol Hemp for illegally selling cannabis.

While the initiative granted individuals the right to cannabis, the legislation stipulated that the only businesses allowed to sell the drug are medical marijuana dispensaries licensed and regulated by D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration.

Since then, city officials appointed through local elections have for the full legalization of cannabis, but lawmakers in Congress have prevented local leaders from moving forward.

Up until recently, a provision included in the District’s annual budget from the federal government prevented the city from using local tax dollars to create a regulated cannabis market in Washington. Last month, the provision was from the most recent package of spending bills proposed by the U.S. Senate, which, if passed by Congress, would allow the city to begin the process of legalizing the sale of marijuana for recreational use for the first time.

Council members plan to discuss , which would fully legalize the sale of recreational cannabis, at a public hearing next .

Yet, according to Eidinger, this process could take more than two years, which would keep the neighborhood’s gifting operations in legal limbo.

The Circle’s Grey Market

The owners of Dupont Circle’s gifting operations said that they’ve found a way to circumvent the local prohibition on retail cannabis sales by providing free “gifts” of marijuana with the purchase of another product like a matchbook or a sticker— typically for a hefty price tag.

But ever since the market was born, which has transformed from pop-up delivery services to brick-and-mortar storefronts, local authorities and store owners who said their businesses are I-71 compliant have been in a legal stalemate.

Raids on gifting operations have become common in the District, creating a headache for store owners. Under , distributing more than one ounce of marijuana to another person can result in a 6-month prison sentence and a fine of $1,000.

“Illegal pop-ups are illegal, and we ought to enforce the law,” said Mendelson.

Employees at Dupont Circle’s CBD Reserve said that they have been confronted by law enforcement on several occasions, which has forced them to close up shop and lose revenue until the situation is resolved.

Norman Douglass, an employee at the store, said that officers visited workers after receiving a tip that the gifting operation was illegally selling cannabis.

While the store does distribute marijuana in addition to CBD and Delta 8 products, Douglass said it does so in the form of gifts included with the purchase of a piece of artwork— typically a print. Police were forced to allow the CBD Reserve to continue operations after employees proved to officers that the business was I-71 compliant.

“They didn’t have any other choice but to let the situation be,” said Douglass. “They cannot charge you with anything because you are compliant and doing what you’re supposed to do.”

Regardless, Douglass said keeping the business open is a “daily battle.”

Despite calls from some Council members to crack down on the illicit market, history shows that when authorities attempt to put an end to the gifting operations, they’ve been largely unsuccessful. An investigation by NBC4 in 2019 found that in over , charges stemming from drug raids or gifting operations die in the courtroom.

“First, they were put in jail for 60 years,” Eidinger said in reference to the mass incarceration of Washingtonians penalized under the city’s drug reform laws, which disproportionately impacted the capital’s communities of color. “Now they’ve been denied economic opportunity for seven years by the same racist people that supported the drug war.”

Since working to pass Initiative 71 almost a decade ago, Eidinger has focused on creating an equitable cannabis market in Washington. He said that doesn’t exist today because barriers prevent many of the city’s medical marijuana program applicants from getting a permit from ABRA.

“Their operations are a form of civil disobedience and they’re legal based on numerous cases that have been taken to court,” said Eidinger.

Eidinger said that gifting operations like the ones in Dupont Circle are the only avenue for many individuals to participate in the multi-billion dollar industry, and said that they were working well within the city’s laws in doing so.

‘This is about helping out everybody’

In recent months, Mendelson has led the charge in cracking down on gifting operations in favor of supporting the District’s legal avenues for purchasing the drug.

“We have a legal cannabis market, which is medical marijuana,” said Mendelson. “But what we have seen in the last couple of years with the emergence of these illegal pop-ups, is that the legal medical cannabis providers are being financially or economically injured.”

The consequences of the heightened competition due to the surging gifting market were compounded for Dupont’s two licensed dispensaries last summer, when almost 6,000 Washingtonians to legally buy cannabis products. Governmental staffing shortages and other pandemic-related complications delayed renewal of medical marijuana cards.

Medical marijuana users in Washington take part in the city’s legal cannabis program for a variety of reasons. Natural Holistic Healing Center’s leading physician, Dr. Chandra Macias, said her patients’ ailments range from symptoms stemming from chemotherapy treatment to those battling anxiety.

 

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When thousands of medical marijuana cards expired in July, Macias said she lost the ability to continue providing care for many of her patients— but said their needs never waned.

“Did their health just recover overnight? No,” said Macias, who was the first Black, female doctor to receive a license to prescribe medical marijuana in the United States. “They were driven to the illicit market because of the different barriers to get into the program.”

Today, D.C.’s medical marijuana program allows patients with qualifying conditions to purchase up to four ounces of marijuana at licensed dispensaries every 30-days.

Though, to receive a medical marijuana card, those seeking to register must get approval from one of just , many of whom charge upwards of $200 per visit. After receiving approval, patients must shell out $100 to register with ABRA, which costs an additional $100 annually to renew the card.

As a result, many Washingtonians are left with no other choice but to pursue other avenues to secure cannabis.

“I broke my back in ‘92,” said McKissick, a homeless Dupont Circle resident who uses marijuana as a pain reliever. “The doctors have been saying its medicine for umpteen years, way before they started putting people in jail for selling it.”

McKissick said the overhead costs of registering with the ABRA and navigating the licensing system have prevented him from receiving a medical marijuana card, and said that the gifting operations are a step toward broadening access to cannabis for those who need it.

But the suffering medical marijuana industry as a result of the thriving gifting market means less tax revenue for the city, which receives of all dispensary earnings in sales tax.

Mendelson recently proposed a unanimously passed bill in the D.C. Council that is meant to levy the competition between the two markets by overriding expired medical marijuana cards and allowing qualifying patients who have received a written recommendation for cannabis from an ABRA authorized practitioner to continue purchasing, possessing, and administering medical marijuana until Jan. 31, 2022.

The original language for the bill included a provision that would have led to a crackdown on the city’s unregulated gifting industry, but was removed one day before the Council was scheduled to vote on the legislation.

Despite delivering a blow to her dispensaries profits, Macias said that quashing the gifting industry would not only harm those who use cannabis medicinally, but also, those selling marijuana under Initiative 71 who have been prevented from joining the city’s legal market.

“Those are the pioneers and the real trailblazers in the industry,” said Macias, who is against the Council’s push to penalize owners of gifting operations. “There were people who wanted to have access to healthcare through medical cannabis who had nowhere to go, and the illicit market provided them that relief.”

Across Dupont Circle’s marijuana markets, there’s a resounding sentiment from dealers to doctors that expanding cannabis accessibility is about taking care of the community.

“This is about the public, this is about helping out everybody,” said Douglass, whose gifting operation in Dupont Circle is directly adjacent to a legal dispensary. “Marijuana is helping people with anxiety, glaucoma, it’s doing its work, and it’s doing a great job. There’s so much stuff that we never really knew that marijuana could do, but it’s doing it now.”

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“There’s still a gay community here, but they’re also in Logan Circle and Shaw,” said Georgia Katinas, manager of Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse, a longtime safe haven for the Circle’s queer residents since the 1950s. “All of the lesbians have moved to Takoma Park.”

But for one night a year, the queer community transforms the area into what it once was: an unabashed gayborhood.

After being sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, dozens of drag queens dusted off their stilettos and returned to the time-honored tradition of ‘crossing the line since 1986’ by participating in last nights 17th Street High Heel Race.

Spectators began to gather just after sundown, hoping to secure a spot on the soon-to-be packed street and get an early look at this year’s contestants. A stage near the starting line blasted Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out,” as a Carrie Bradshaw lookalike earned a cheer from onlookers as the drag queen strutted down the road and shouted ‘This is for ladies who brunch!’

Hundreds of spectators crowded the streets of Dupont Circle to watch one of the city’s most unique events, wherein drag queens— dressed in costumes ranging from Princess Diana to Melania Trump to members of a fringe polygamist sect who made headlines in the early 2000’s— dart down a .1-mile stretch of raceway that between JR’s Bar & Grill and Annie’s.

Participants said that turnout for the race was slim compared to years past, but point to concerns about COVID-19 and a sudden change to cooler weather for the blame.

Nevertheless, positivity radiated off of those gathered to celebrate the tradition, held the Tuesday before Halloween each year.

The event’s original participants competed for a bottle of champagne, but for longtime competitors like Martin Moeller, many queens are racing for much more than alcohol.

“To some extent, it’s just having fun or dressing up,” said Moeller, who has participated in the event since its early years. “But I think it sometimes also has a political edge. It’s a way of expressing our identity through being ridiculous, being crazy, and making fun of ourselves at the same time that we make fun of other institutions that may find us distasteful.”

Moeller, who has lived in the Dupont Circle neighborhood with his husband for nearly two decades, said the event has shifted over the years from being predominantly queer-centric to entertaining straight attendees, which he says isn’t completely a bad thing.

“If we can convince other people— straight, cisgender, whatever they may be— who haven’t experienced this kind of openness, then I think we’ve accomplished something,” said Moeller.

Today, Dupont Circle’s former hubs of gay nightlife, like Mr. P’s and Rascals, have been replaced by sports bars that label themselves as gay but appear to be predominantly occupied by bachelorette parties and millennial happy hours.

Dave Perruzza, former longtime manager of JR’s, said that while the race has straightened out some since it began, the neighborhood has changed entirely.

When the area was the District’s unequivocal center of gay life, its distinct gilded age manors housed LGBT organizations, each bar sponsored a popular drag show and coffee shops hosted support groups for those in the community battling HIV/AIDS.

“I think this race is the only thing, besides Annie’s, that still solidifies [17th street] as a gay street,” said Perruzza.

The Dupont Circle of yesterday lives on at Annie’s, where gay life is still as ubiquitous as it once was in the neighborhood.

On any given day, middle-aged and grey-haired gays crowd Annie’s iconic bar for a stiff drink from bartenders who have watched drag queens race in front of the restaurant for decades.

The steakhouse welcomes customers in the neighborhood regardless of their sexual orientation, but Katinas said the James Beard Award-Winning restaurant doesn’t plan on swapping out its rainbow bunting anytime soon.

“Even though as a society we’re more commingled, I think it’s still really nice to have places where you can walk in, look around, and say, ‘Oh, I’m not alone. I’m not the only one,” said Katinas, whose family has operated the business on 17th street since 1948.

The race, held the Tuesday before each Halloween, was organized by volunteers until 1999, when Perruzza became the event’s chief organizer— a momentous, and unpaid task.

In preparation for the race each year, Perruzza said he was tasked with securing permits from the city, organizing with law enforcement, and recruiting more than 150 volunteers, in addition to executing the event and its clean-up.

“For me, it was a nightmare,” said Perruzza.

The challenge of pulling off the glittery tradition grew as hopeful competitors multiplied and spectators reached the thousands.

When Perruzza stepped down from his longtime managerial position at JR’s Bar & Grill to open Pitchers and A League of Her Own in nearby Adams Morgan in 2018, the event became a production of the city government— a change he said was necessary for the race’s survival.

“I got a lot of s—- for giving the event to the mayor,” said Perruzza. “When I left, there was no one who was going to do all of the work I did because I didn’t get paid for it… the only way this event could continue to go on is if the mayor’s office took over.”

But Katinas said it’s keeping traditions like the 17th Street High Heel Race alive and preserving businesses like Annie’s that help the neighborhood maintain its distinct identity.

“This isn’t necessarily the gayborhood anymore,” said Katinas. “It’s different now, so it’s nice to have anchors of the place where LGBTQ people will always feel welcome and that they’re always going to feel like 17th street is a place for them.”

The Circle has always revolved around cultural movements— ranging from war resisters to Black Power activists to homosexuals yearning to live in the light— and it will continue to turn, a 360-degree rotation of the country’s social fabric in one neighborhood in the nation’s capital.

Though it’s changed, Perruzza still attends the event, Moeller continues to participate and Katinas said Annie’s employees cherish the High Heel Race so much, they did an impromptu six person dash in front of the restaurant last year in honor of the event after it was canceled in the throws of the pandemic.

In part, this is because the race still serves a purpose— and it’s a hell of a lot of fun to run in heels.

“We’re getting these people to loosen up and to get a laugh and realize, you know, we’re not a freak show,” said Moeller. “If you’ve grown up LGBT in this country, you probably have survived because you were able to loosen up a bit, I know that’s true for me.”

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The concept of urban farming used to be simple: take vacant, unused land and grow locally sourced produce. But in the compact neighborhood Dupont Circle, residents and local farmers are converting unused, unconventional spaces to address the community’s needs. 

Devon Dotson, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Botanical Garden, said interest in the organization’s urban farming programming has been veracious among Washingtonians since the outbreak of COVID-19, and continues to be 18-months into the pandemic. 

“People are still interested in this; they’re excited and still wanting to learn,” said Dotson. 

The local government has identified between 20 and 30 established urban farms across the District that vary from rooftop gardens to hydroponic farms to microgreen operations, according to Kate Lee, director of D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment’s Office of Urban Agriculture. 

Yet, the true scale of urban agriculture is much higher in Dupont Circle, where community and school gardens play an important role in supporting the neighborhood.

Urban Farming in Dupont Circle

From below, the legal firm Steptoe’s main office in the Dupont Circle neighborhood looks like any other corporate headquarters— but from above, the nine-story building has an entirely different purpose. 

The rooftop farm at Steptoe, built and maintained by Up Top Acres, is one of Dupont Circle’s first urban agricultural spaces. Steptoe joins smaller pre-existing sites like the Kalorama community garden and the in boosting the neighborhood’s green spaces and bolstering food production in the city. 

 

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The produce grown on the Steptoe rooftop garden is incorporated into the on-site cafeteria. It goes toward feeding the office’s 600 lawyers, paralegals and support staff, according to Up Top Acres co-Founder Kristof Grina. In addition to providing fresh food for Steptoe employees, the rooftop garden has hosted a number of community workshops that reach Dupont residents about urban agriculture. 

The effects of increased vegetation in the city are multipronged. Grina said the additional vegetation slows heavy rainfall by absorbing water that often overwhelms the city’s sewer system— a problem expected to in Washington over the next 30 years due to climate change. 

Grina also said creating more green spaces in neighborhoods like Dupont can prevent the effects of urban heat islands, which occur in communities with large swaths of concrete and asphalt that absorb heat. Residents in these areas can experience temperatures up to .

“Putting plants and putting soil on roofs helps to mitigate that urban heat island effect in cities,” said Grina. 

Urban agriculture used to be constricted to traditional farming practices, but Dotson says that even compact neighborhoods like Dupont Circle are capable of farming today. 

“Almost any space these days can be made into an urban farm,” said Dotson. “It’s almost always better to have those plants than not,” said Dotson. 

Advances in technology have allowed for the expansion of urban agriculture and the development of new farming methods, like hydroponic gardening, which involves growing plants without soil entirely.

For Dupont Circle, a congested neighborhood home to over 10,000 residents, the diverse potential and flexibility of urban farming provides an opportunity to help support food insecurity in the community.

Lessons from the Garden Help Communities Grow

More often than not, the greatest challenge for developing urban agriculture isn’t generating interest or setting up the plot, said Dotson. Rather, Dotson said it’s making sure those left in charge know how to garden in an urban environment and have the resources to continue doing, so that’s a challenge.

“Community support for programs like these are really important because those people are ultimately the ones that will take care of these places,” said Dotson.  “If you want to be successful, there’s more than just setting it up.”

Farm failure rates are high across the country, and Dotson said that agricultural education is a key aspect in keeping new urban farms from succumbing to the same fate. 

To do so, the community has invested in creating school gardens to educate the city’s youngest. In Dupont, schools like Oyster-Adams Bilingual School and Frances Stephens planted plots of string beans and broccoli maintained and harvested by students. 

“There are so many ways you can learn from a garden,” said Lee, whose office works with DCPS to teach students about

 sustainable farming. “A lot of kids in the city don’t have access to green spaces, so we’re bringing those green spaces to their schools.”

Of the District’s 229 public and charter schools, , which Lee said will hopefully expand in the coming years.

In educating students about urban agriculture, administrators say lessons on farming and the importance of healthy food don’t stop at the schoolhouse gate. 

Families whose children attend Frances Stephens that their students have brought lessons on urban farming and cooking locally sourced food home, and many have begun planting gardens of their own. 

“Urban farming will never feed the entire city,” said Grina, who owns a farm in Dupont. “But it can play a role.”

The post Urban Farming Gets Tangled Up in Dupont’s Roots first appeared on 91����.

“Dry ice is the most effective thing to kill them,” said Schwartz, peering in between the branches of her Wisteria tree— this is one of their favorite hiding spots, she says.
“It’s very humane because they die in their sleep.”

Schwartz, who has been living in her north Dupont row house for more than 20 years, said that rats have always been an issue, specifically in the alley behind her house that she shares with an apartment complex and small restaurant. Though, after working to plug rat holes in the alleyway and encourage neighbors to secure the lids on their garbage cans, the rodent-problem waned.

“They all left, and for the last couple of years it’s been pretty darn good,” said Schwartz.

Everything changed when the neighborhood’s locally-owned and operated waste disposal and recycling business was acquired by one of the nation’s largest sanitation companies, says Schwartz. It was then that trash began to pile up and rats began to return— and fast.

Tenleytown Trash, formerly owned by lifetime Washingtonian Barney Shapiro, was sold to Republic Services, a nation-wide private garbage collection company, on June 1, 2021. Ever since, customers say the service has gone “.”

Dupont ANC Commissioner Matthew Holden said Tenleytown Trash serviced his condo building weekly, coming once to collect garbage and multiple times per week for recyclables.

“We never had a problem,” said Holden. “Then the new company brought them and it was like problems began immediately.”

At first, the sanitation company would miss a few days at a time, says Holden, but eventually, the trash began to pile up and service became nearly nonexistent.

When residents complained, Holden said the trash hauling company brought in additional dumpsters to curb the overflowing waste but “even then we couldn’t get them to pick the [dumpsters] up at the right frequency or consistently,” said Holden.

Since, Holden’s condo has severed its contract with Republic Services.

Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood isn’t the only community battling the waste management giant. Neighborhoods from to to have reported overflowing dumpsters and littered streets, all of which point to Republic Services for the blame.

91���� made repeated attempts to contact Republic Services by phone and email to better understand the slew of complaints by Dupont Circle residents. In response, Republic Services sent a statement asking for customers’ patience and understanding.

“We are currently experiencing some temporary local delays with waste and recycling collections,” Republic Services told 91���� in response to the allegations of poor service. “Many industries are facing staffing challenges at this time, and the environmental services industry is no different.”

Trash and recycling collection companies across the country have reported staffing shortages amid the coronavirus pandemic, despite sanitation employees being considered essential workers.

Waste management companies have had a difficult time retaining garbage truck drivers since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic due to illness, school closures, and a lack of affordable child-care options that require employees to stay at home, according to a by the Solid Waste Association of North America.

Simultaneously, garbage produced by housebound Americans has skyrocketed, resulting in mountains of waste.

Republic Services estimates that trash production per household has increased by since the start of the pandemic, and Jesse Maxwell, advocacy and safety senior manager at SWANA, says the rising trend in trash production isn’t going anywhere.

“In D.C., I think a hybrid work model is going to be much more common moving forward,” said Maxwell, who says SWANA itself has switched to the model permanently. “We’re going to see an increase in residential waste simply because people will be working from home, at least part of the time, probably permanently.”

Maxwell said that the pandemic has also fundamentally changed the way Americans shop.

“Obviously we’ve already been in a very Amazon-centric place, but as people switched to ordering groceries and having those delivered, I think some of that behavior of ordering-in is going to stay,” said Maxwell. “Once you’ve switched over, you’re not going back.”

As a result, the amount of packaging, shipping supplies and plastic waste will continue to be the driving force behind increased residential garbage in the post-pandemic world, said Maxwell.

In addition to shipping waste, trash being generated by households has spiked primarily due to the rise in personal protective equipment like plastic gloves, disposable masks and cleaning supplies. In fact, plastic waste generated worldwide since the onset of the pandemic is estimated to have reached per day.

Maxwell said the increase in waste means more frequent trips to the landfill for sanitation workers, which means more time and expenses for waste management companies like Republic Services.

“Let’s say that in a set period of time a crew could pick up 300 houses and take their trash to the landfill before the pandemic,” said Maxwell. “Maybe now they could only pick up 200 houses’ garbage in the same amount of time because they’re getting so much of it.”

As a result, Republic Services said its customers could expect to see a cost hike of for their waste hauling services.

However, despite making monthly payments, Dupont Circle residents say that empty pizza boxes, Amazon shipping containers and household garbage have continued to mount outside of their homes with no word on when they’ll be removed.

“I have not seen the garbage company pick up the cans since June,” said Schwartz. “One of the very nice tenants at the apartment next door is actually spending his own money on black garbage bags and bagging up the trash and piling it up next to the building to keep it as clean and as neat as possible.”

Despite residents attempting to remedy the problem themselves, when trash collection is overwhelmed, garbage in the street is like a vacancy sign for rodents. Washington, D.C. has for years, and has consistently ranked as one of the nation’s for the unwanted foragers.

Other than chewing through Schwartz’s end-of-the-season tomato crop, the presence of rats in compact metropolitan neighborhoods like Dupont Circle present a number of challenges. Most concerning being that urban rats congregate in unsanitary conditions, where they pick up harmful diseases that can be transmitted to humans.

Since the trash from neighboring homes and businesses began to collect in the alley outside of her home, Schwartz said that she has had to incur additional costs to keep the rodents at bay, including hiring multiple exterminators, building a new fence to surround the property, and installing aluminum sheets in her backyard to prevent the rats from burrowing into the ground.

“I’m not complaining about the rats because this is what happens when you live in a city, I’m complaining because we had it controlled,” said Schwartz.

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