A cohort of apparent leftists have targeted the Trump International Hotel’s liquor license in Washington, D.C., arguing that the hotel’s owner, President Donald Trump, is “not of good character” and that the hotel should therefore be stripped of its liquor license. A regulatory agency in D.C. has since dismissed the complaint.
Attorney Joshua A. Levy filed the complaint to D.C.’s Alcohol Beverage Control Board in June 2018 on behalf of eight purported D.C. residents, claiming that President Donald Trump had been breaking D.C. law by simply owning a business that maintains a liquor license, according to a report by ABC News.
Levy said when he filed the complaint last year:
President Trump is not above the law. In D.C., the law requires an owner of a liquor license to be of ‘good character,’ and Mr. Trump is not. He should transfer the ownership to someone who can comply with the law or show cause why his license should not be revoked.
The complainants argued that the Trump International Hotel in D.C. should be stripped of its liquor license due to the U.S. president’s alleged lack of “good character.”
“With each passing day, the story of Donald Trump’s lack of good character continues to play out in the public,” said Levy. “Residents of the district can and should come forward to urge the liquor board to reach the merits of this complaint.”
Arguments for the complaint were last heard on September 18.
“This is not about the neighborhood, not about the common good and certainly not about the law,” said Alan Garten, general counsel of the Trump Organization, to ABC after the complaint was initially filed. “This is politics at its worst and an obvious effort to misuse the power of government to advance a political agenda.”
“The statute is clearly being distorted for political gain and the suggested interpretation would create an absurd precedent, not to mention a slippery slope,” he added.
The board has since dismissed the case on the basis of a residency requirement, and it did not end up making a decision on the merits of the claim, according to ABC, which added that the dismissal paperwork noted “that the purported group of eight residents and property owners does not contain at least five residents or property owners” within D.C.
According to the board, only four of the original complainants were found to have been residents and property owners in Washington, D.C., resulting in the case being dismissed.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.
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