jonetta rose barras: Repealing Initiative 82 might provide some help restaurants need

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser seems to have ramped up her game lately, broadening her vision for the District’s future while attempting to stabilize its finances and increase private-sector investments. 

Last week, she unveiled a $3.7 billion agreement with the Washington Commanders to build a mixed-use sports stadium-entertainment-recreation complex in a largely neglected area of Ward 7; $2.7 billion of the costs would come from the team’s managing partner Josh Harris and other members of the ownership group.

This week, Bowser presented her “Transformational Growth Agenda” — select proposals expected to be included in her Fiscal Year 2026 Budget and Financial Plan, scheduled for official release on or shortly after May 15. Among other things, she has pledged to eschew any new tax increases; reduce the Paid Family Leave payroll tax from 0.75% to 0.72%; remove “red tape” that has prevented business investments; reform certain zoning procedures; provide additional retail incentives to revitalize commercial corridors; and pause the District’s “Net Zero” law, which mandates certain energy efficiency measures in DC buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2032.

She also vowed to submit legislation to repeal the city’s onerous tipped wage law, also known as Initiative 82. That cheering sound is coming from restaurant owners, waitstaff, bartenders and perhaps even DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson. Even though he acknowledged having pledged not to overturn the ballot measure, he reiterated this week that he always opposed the elimination of the tipped minimum wage and even implied that he’d support repeal if there’s enough momentum on the council to do so. 

Proponents of I-82 have already begun to organize against Bowser. Some unionized workers held a rally on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building, flanked by Councilmembers Brianne Nadeau and Zachary Parker. Many of the attendees also oppose the mayor’s agreement with the Commanders.

There have been moments during this past week where I caught myself admiring Bowser’s adroitness and recalling my grandmother’s skill when she voluntarily sewed by hand the various costumes my sisters and I wore for every play in elementary school. Her stitching was always clean and straight.

The thing that captured my attention was the way my grandmother threaded the small eye of her needle and then used her thimble to quickly push it through the cloth. I never once saw her prick her finger — though I imagine it must have happened; she wasn’t infallible.

Bowser has been teaching a class on threading a similarly small-eyed needle in terms of federal and local politics. She has had to respond to President Donald Trump — a man who seems to lack impulse control, whether tweeting an image of himself dressed in papal attire just days after Pope Francis’ death, jacking up illogical trade tariffs, or demanding millions of dollars for a military parade on the streets of the nation’s capital because he saw one in Paris and wanted one like it for himself. 

She also has had to contend with the increasing displays of petulance by Mendelson, who pushed through changes to the city’s open meetings law — claiming, among other things, that he and his colleagues didn’t want spats with the mayor on public display, only to publicly promise to file a lawsuit against her if she doesn’t produce the 2026 budget by May 15 as set by the council. 

Wait, weren’t Mendelson and other councilmembers standing next to Bowser outside the Capitol earlier this year when she decried the actions of House Republicans that essentially imposed as much as $1 billion in spending cuts on the District government in the middle of its fiscal year? Didn’t Mendelson know she hoped, before imposing a spending freeze or ordering workforce furloughs, to persuade House Speaker Mike Johnson to fix the mess he and his GOP caucus created? 

What is wrong with him? Is he worried that a late budget means he’ll have to delay his summer vacation?

Please don’t think I believe Bowser is without flaws. I have never met a perfect politician, and all public officials should be held accountable. I am certain that when she does release her budget there will be plenty for me to criticize — indeed, I previously argued against her push to scale back the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, as she now wants to do in the FY 2026 budget legislation. 

Further, the DC government needs serious downsizing; so far, both the mayor and the council have been timid about that task. In fact, answering questions about spending reductions in the upcoming FY 2026 budget, City Administrator Kevin Donahue said the administration hopes to foster enough economic improvements to buy back those cuts in 2027 and 2028. 

What? Help us!

Despite that misguided endeavor, most of the proposals Bowser and her team — Donahue and Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert — presented this week, including changes around who can and can’t appeal zoning decisions, are serious and deserve consideration.

“We are trying to [establish] both deadlines and clarity on who’s permitted, for example, to appeal,” explained Albert. “Right now, it’s completely open. Somebody who’s not even a resident of the District of Columbia can [appeal]. So, we need to put some guardrails.

“We need to recognize the people who are most impacted by zoning actions in their neighborhood are the neighbors,” she added, clearly a reference to protracted battles over projects like the mixed-use development at the McMillan Reservoir site.

Bowser said that a large number of housing units — affordable housing projects — have been put on hold because of these kinds of procedures. To underscore this assertion, the administration cited a recent report by the Washington DC Economic Partnership, which indicated that last year construction started for only 932 rental housing units — down 79% from the 4,474 units in 2023. 

These reductions may not be solely a feature of zoning procedures. Still, the numbers suggest a need to review the red tape and hoops developers are being required to conquer. DC has long had a reputation for being anti-business.

The law that is phasing out the tipped minimum wage falls in that category. Sure, it was approved by the voters in 2022 as a ballot initiative. However, that was a campaign largely advanced and financed by outside organizers who were pursuing a national agenda. 

Cleverly, proponents cast hospitality workers as being left out of the rise in the minimum wage embraced by DC elected officials and others. Unsurprisingly, that messaging seduced the city’s population of primarily liberal and moderate voters, hoping to right a wrong perpetrated against those they perceived as mostly low-income wage earners — despite many of the affected employees opposing the change in their pay structure.

Equally troubling, there is the possibility that some of the voter information on qualifying petitions for I-82 may have been tampered with, in violation of DC election law. Several individuals have said they used correction tape or Wite-Out when addresses did not match those on file at the DC Board of Elections. In my view, that fact alone is sufficient for repealing the law.

Shawn Townsend confessed that before he became president and chief executive officer of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW), he signed a petition for the first tipped wage initiative. “And I signed it in front of a restaurant owner. Once he explained [the issues] to me, I understood,” he told me during an extensive interview earlier this week.

That measure, Initiative 77, was repealed by the council. Proponents managed to get a second — Initiative 82 — on the ballot. Townsend said he refused to endorse that effort — and for good reason. It has wreaked havoc on DC’s hospitality industry while causing dissatisfaction among diners who have faced higher meal prices and confusion around service fees as restaurant owners have sought to stay afloat.

“Restaurants are facing a perfect storm,” Bowser said during her press conference at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE. “We’re not on H Street by accident.” 

Last year, while working in a HumanitiesDC community journalism program, I met a young Ward 7 resident who was part of my training group. He was alarmed by the decline of the H Street corridor that decades after the 1968 riot had finally found its footing, becoming a vibrant destination. 

He set out to discover the reason so many restaurants were closing their doors. Owner after owner cited Initiative 82 as their top reason for shuttering. 

Interestingly, in a post on X, Illinois comptroller Susana A. Mendoza called the mayor’s push for repeal “Excellent news.” She asserted that Chicago, which is also in the process of phasing out its tipped minimum wage, “should follow suit. Data is clear, eliminating the tip credit led to job losses, less take-home pay for lots of workers, higher food prices and restaurants closing.”

Hospitality is DC’s second-largest industry, trailing only the federal government, Bowser said. Restaurant jobs “allow people to buy homes, put their kids through college … If restaurants close, there are no jobs.”

Initiative 82 was enacted as economies around the world, including DC’s, sought to recover from a global pandemic. Locally, businesses were paying increased rents, as clientele decreased. In other words, their expenses went up. Their revenue went down.

Into that mix has come President Trump, rescinding grants to nonprofit organizations, terminating contracts, and firing thousands of federal workers who live in the District or other jurisdictions in the region. The result is that even fewer people have disposable income for an afternoon or evening meal in a local restaurant.

A spokesperson for the city administrator offered a report prepared by RAMW as indisputable evidence of the problem and the danger to DC’s economic health.

According to RAMW, “44% of DC’s full-service casual restaurants say they are likely to close in 2025.” Equally troubling, “Nearly half (49%) of all restaurants saw fewer diners in 2024 than the previous year (up 20%), while those experiencing lower sales jumped to 47% (up 52%). 

“Diners are increasingly staying home due to rising prices, with 47% of DC residents saying they’re dining out less frequently,” according to RAMW.

Looking to the future, the RAMW report’s predictions are dismal. “More than half (51%) of restaurants expect conditions to worsen in 2025 — a 21% increase from the previous year’s survey.”

Townsend offered that he is “no economist but it’s clear the margins for restaurants are thin.”

“The money has to come from somewhere. When it doesn’t, restaurant owners eventually give up. They say they are simply tired of robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said Townsend. “Out of all the challenges restaurants face, I-82 is one of the things the council and mayor have control over.”

We’ll soon find out whether Bowser has actually become expert at stitching and threading.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.