Good morning, D.C. In today’s newsletter: Calls for a revamped rental registry, Tom Sietsema on Rose’s Luxury and Thomas Boswell on the Commanders’ calamitous tie.
Capital Weather’s Daily Digit — 8/10. 80 degrees won’t be a hit with the pumpkin spice latte crowd, but this sunny, comfortable-humidity day is still plenty nice! Full forecast from Capital Weather.
THE LATEST
So you want to know who owns your rental property? Good luck tracking down an actual human.
Trending
D.C. logs who has a stake in the LLCs, nonprofits, co-ops and for-profit corporations that own housing in D.C. online, listing any other properties those “beneficial owners” own. New York City may be the only other jurisdiction in the country that does so.
Because of how the law defines a “person,” sometimes searching that D.C. database just churns up another business entity. Advocates say that is partly why it’s been so challenging to hold bad actors accountable here, and why D.C.’s Department of Buildings is owed almost $87 million for unresolved code violations, The Washington Sun’s Zara Norman reports.
That’s why some are calling for the city to require that a “natural person” be listed, with contact information, alongside each LLC in a public-facing registry. It could help D.C. better perform “clean hands” inspections, advocates say, ensuring that landlords receiving city business don’t owe fines and penalties under a different LLC.
“Our systems are not talking to each other,” Ward 5 council member Zachary Parker told The Sun. “We have a system that essentially allows many landlords to go without enforcement or consequences.”
Not everyone is convinced that another registry is a vehicle for fixing poor housing conditions in the District. At a recent housing committee hearing, dozens of landlords said tenants’ sustained nonpayment of rent and a slow-marching eviction process are preventing them from injecting capital back into their properties.
“Another public registry is the tenant advocacy bureaucracy outdoing itself with another unnecessary burden, and it couldn’t come at the worst time,” said Dean Hunter, the CEO of D.C.’s Small Multifamily & Rental Owners Association. “We have a rent payment crisis that has deeply destabilized affordable housing. I believe we’re about six months away from a wave of affordable housing foreclosures.”
DEEP DIVE
A federal judge tore into Trump administration lawyers over the removal of some 430 trees — many of them healthy — from East Potomac Park over the weekend without giving her sufficient advance notice, The Sun’s Mara Hoplamazian, Reese Gorman and Todd Ruger report.
The showdown took place during a last-minute, four-hour hearing on Monday where Judge Ana C. Reyes grilled attorneys from the Justice Department, one official from the National Park Service and another from the Interior Department over the administration’s late-Friday notification that it would start clearing more than 500 trees the following day.
Reyes was incredulous that she had been notified so late about the project, despite ongoing litigation related to President Donald Trump’s plans to renovate the East Potomac Park golf course into what many fear would be luxury links that would be out of reach for the general public.
“You did your absolute worst,” she thundered at a DOJ lawyer over his claim that they did their best to notify her of the tree-clearing ahead of time. She also said the government had lost credibility with her, and ordered a senior Interior Department official to appear this week to testify as to what has happened — and “whether or not I’ve been lied to.”
Reyes has forbidden any more work at East Potomac Park through Tuesday afternoon, pending further testimony to determine whether the Trump administration lied to her about its plans. “I am thoroughly unamused right now,” she said.
FROM THE DISTRICT
D.C. has selected a team to build a new $77 million indoor sportsplex alongside the new Commanders stadium at the RFK campus on the east end of Capitol Hill, the Washington Business Journal reports. The sportsplex will sit to the north of the stadium, on a portion of the campus that will be reserved for sports and recreation.
Federal agents searched the D.C. home of Rep. Ilhan Omar yesterday morning as part of a criminal investigation, The Sun’s Elise Foley and Mara Hoplamazian report. It’s a highly unusual move this close to an election.
The Kennedy Center has tapped talent manager Rick Canny to be its new artistic director, WAMU reports. Canny, whose previous clients include ZZ Top and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, has been working as a consultant to the storied — and recently beleaguered — arts institution since February 2025.
FROM VIRGINIA
It’s restaurant week in Arlington, which means you can score discounted meals at more than 70 area restaurants through Monday.
FROM MARYLAND
The University of Maryland’s club tennis team has been suspended indefinitely after a Howard University student found racist images in informational materials for a tournament the Maryland team hosted, WUSA9 reports.
FROM THE DINING ROOM
Tom Sietsema, The Sun’s food correspondent, dishes on a hump day deal.
The drill at Rose’s Luxury on the Hill for the past five years — five courses for $133 — isn’t every diner’s jam, even though patrons get to make a few choices on the set-price menu. Memorable as the cooking is, some of us don’t want to commit to that much food, which includes can’t-miss milk bread, a sharable entree and what the menu calls “slightly ridiculously-sized desserts.” True that.
What lured this fan back recently was the news that Rose’s Luxury offers the option of a la carte on Wednesday nights. A recent hump day found me at the counter of the second-floor bar, inhaling the restaurant’s signature pork and lychee salad topped with a little cloud of coconut foam.
“Destroy it to enjoy it,” instructed an attendant. For sure, the best way to eat the $25 assembly is to swirl the contents in the bowl so you can taste the dozen-plus other ingredients, including mint, garlic chips, shaved red onion, peanut and pickled habanero. Zing went the strings of my heart.
Next up was bucatini tossed with a rich sungold tomato sauce and priced at $19. Cooked to retain some bite, the subtly sweet pasta trumpets cracked pepper, fresh basil and cheese. The dishes were preceded by the elegant Rose is Luxury: rye whiskey, lemon juice and rose-flavored simple syrup.
Owner Aaron Silverman says the restaurant makes about $30 less per person when it offers a la carte, an idea introduced in February, and tries to offset the difference with greater turnover of tables. Acknowledging that people are watching their dining budgets more closely these days, he’s open to expanding the deal to other days of the week. Yes, please!
Turns out the playful restaurant just celebrated 13 years, prompting a staffer to congratulate his boss with “Happy bar mitzvah!”
WHAT YOU GET WITH A FIREPLACE
This week’s real estate column looks at what buyers can get for less than $1 million with a wood-burning fireplace.
Where is this house listed? Click on your guess to see the answer:
SPORTS
Long before the disastrous, somewhat inexplicable conclusion to the Commanders’ Week 5 tie with the Giants, Washington’s defense collapsed. After stifling New York for much of the afternoon, the unit surrendered three touchdowns on three straight possessions to squander a 14-point lead. So, what happened? The Sun’s Martenzie Johnson studied the game tape to find out.
The Sun’s Thomas Boswell believes Sunday’s game-ending snafu was the worst he’s seen in his 70 years following Washington’s football team. “The Commanders had not one but two absolute imperatives: Make sure you get off a field goal attempt, and run off as much time as you (safely) can before that kick in case you miss,” he writes. “Turns out that, even in this most generous of evaluations, the Commanders couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”
What to Watch Today
NHL: Capitals at Hurricanes, 6:45 p.m. (Monumental)
Thank you for reading! If you liked this newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If someone shared it with you, please sign up — it’s free! Got a tip or comments to share? Email us at metro@washsun.com. Finally, yesterday’s trivia answer was B) 1964. That was the first presidential election that included D.C. voters. A special shout-out to Donna Fletcher, who answered first.
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