Bowser has ruined the charm of the high heel race since he took over, participants say

In Dave PerruzzaAfter 26 years of organizing the 17th Street High Heel Race, “order prevailed,” he says. “It’s chaos now.”

Perruzza handed control of the popular annual event to the city government in 2018 when he left his post as manager of JR's Bar in Dupont to open a new gay bar in Adams Morgan. Attendees at the time expressed concerns about this decision, arguing that the mayor Muriel BowserWhat started as a ragtag community gathering with drunken drag queens running back and forth between bars along the street was mishandled in his office. In retrospect, Perruzza fears that these critics were right.

“They ruined the charm of the event,” Perruzza tells Loose Lips, arguing that the gathering was so overcrowded that the crowd could barely see the race itself. “It’s just more commercialized now, and that’s a shame.”

Perruzza is not alone in this assessment. Ahead of this year's edition of the race on Tuesday, LL has heard more and more voices who believe that the city has made some serious mistakes in organizing the event in recent years. According to ten different sources from the city's LGBTQIA community and the Dupont Circle neighborhood, the problems include uneven enforcement of alcohol regulations, poor coordination among county agencies and a frustrating expansion of the event's programming beyond its humble beginnings. Some fear Washington officials will eventually decide to move the event from Dupont as it continues to expand, just as they did with the Capital Pride Parade.

“We can lose our traditions so easily,” he says Jeff Rueckaueran advisory neighborhood commissioner in Dupont who has attended the race on and off for three decades. “The organizers are saying, 'The race is getting bigger and we need to accommodate all these other people.' But what about the people who live here, the people who made this possible? You shouldn’t necessarily just focus on bigger and better things.”

When the city took over, the event was expected to become even more sophisticated and corporate. There was a lot of eye rolling and snarky jokes about how Bowser, as is her wont, stamped her name on all the marketing materials for the race. But even some critics acknowledge that given the significant difficulties involved in organizing such a large event, it's probably a good thing the city took this on. But that hasn't stopped many in the community from wondering whether the city's work has robbed the high heel race of its soul on a fundamental level.

“The old-school drag queen in me says, ‘Really? Do we need to professionalize this?'” says a longtime attendee who requested anonymity to discuss the event openly and avoid incurring Bowser's wrath. “You add too many bells and whistles to the whole thing. It should just be fun to drag and run down the street.”

Spokespeople for Bowser and her Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which primarily manages the race, did not respond to LL's request for comment by press time. However, Fred Moosallythe director of the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Cannabis, wrote in a statement to LL that his agency had coordinated with police, advisory neighborhood commissions and other community leaders to “encourage open communication with businesses along the circuit about the law.” . regulating the sale and consumption of alcohol and what adjustments they could make to provide the best possible service to race participants.”

Rückgauer and others in the community hope the city improves its coordination on alcohol-related issues this year. At least they suspect things can't be worse than they were a year ago, which marked a minor low point in relations between the city, local leaders and 17th Street businesses.

That's because on the night of the race, around 7 p.m., ABCA officials forced several bars along 17th Street to close their outdoor areas for about an hour, a critical period during which crowds began to grow. Perruzza estimates that bars “probably lost thousands of dollars” in just that short period of time before they were allowed to serve outside again.

“The mayor and the police chief had just come by and were taking pictures and talking to people in all these bars,” recalls Vincent Slattthe ANC for the area where the race is taking place. “Next thing you know, ABCA is there to silence people.”

According to LL, the dispute was primarily about bars that sold to-go drinks. Pandemic-era rules allowed them to do so as long as those drinks were sealed and bars required patrons to also purchase food. But (perhaps predictably) revelers quickly began opening their drinks and consuming them on the street. The bar owners felt they were following the letter of the law, but ABCA disagreed. “It just felt like there were mixed messages coming from ABCA,” said another longtime participant who witnessed the argument and also requested anonymity. “The police did nothing. They just watched it all.”

“ABCA responded to the incident and observed more than 50 patrons leaving licensed premises with open containers and consuming alcoholic beverages on the public street,” Moosally wrote in his statement. “ABCA advised licensed establishments that allow this to no longer allow patrons to leave their licensed establishments with open containers of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the public street. … At last year’s event, no businesses were closed and no allegations or warnings were issued.”

Rueckgauer remembers that everything felt like the “Wild West” as some bartenders sold drinks straight from their bar coolers in full view of the police. He says many in the community were also upset about the whole scene, as there weren't many strict ID checks taking place either. But Perruzza felt the bars shouldn't have been penalized for the district's lack of organization.

“I went to the mayor's office and said, 'I suggest they fix this right away,' and they figured it out pretty quickly,” Perruzza says. “People get mad when you do something like the high heel race. People get angry because it's your tradition. And gays vote.”

Several participants expressed to LL a desire for a special permit for businesses to allow the sale of alcohol for public consumption in the area since so many people drink anyway. But Rückgauer says that would likely require a change in the law, since the mayor is currently prohibited from sponsoring events with alcohol. He says he has prepared a proposal to present to the Ward 2 council member Brooke Pinto for consideration. (Her office did not respond to a request for comment.)

“The Wharf is an open container area, the entire waterfront, but 17th Street can't be it?” says Slatt. “We’re still operating under some really outdated alcohol laws here.”

Rückgauer and Slatt say ABCA, police officials, the mayor's office and the ANC have all met regularly this year to prevent a repeat of the 2023 mess. But there's not much the city could do to satisfy some critics other than abandoning the race entirely.

Many former participants still resent the fact that the event is now so heavily secured, that there are so many police officers enforcing registration rules and that checkpoints are tightly controlled. Gone are the days when competitors could easily walk into a bar to have a drink and then walk out to watch the race in moments. (Hanging over everything are memories of Metropolitan Police Department officers beating several race spectators in 1991, prompting community outrage and an apology from the then-chief Isaac Fullwood.)

“The unfortunate reality is that any kind of large gathering requires security, especially when you're dealing with all the nonsense that's currently being spread about gays and drag queens,” Rückgauer says. “You really don’t want to take the risk of some crazy guy showing up and causing havoc, do you?”

That's why some consider the complaints about the city's involvement to be somewhat impractical. The police have always been heavily involved in securing the event, requiring the cooperation of the city, which Perruzza freely admits. The main difference now is that the county government itself has full responsibility for covering all costs involved – Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets has contributed funding since 2011, but Perruzza has otherwise relied largely on volunteers.

“The city was always involved in the organization,” says a racing veteran. “It’s only now official.”

Perhaps Perruzza's biggest complaint is Bowser's decision to steadily expand the race into something that feels more like a “street party.” With a large stage for speeches, a parade and a bevy of political bigwigs in attendance, Slatt says he often hears from his neighbors that it feels like “just another Green Team event.”

“It's great to showcase all the gay organizations, but there's a time and a place for that, and it's not the high heel race,” Perruzza says. “Nobody pays attention to the people in the costumes anymore.”

The event has likely become too big and too popular to ever return to its humble origins: Slatt said organizers expect about 10,000 participants on Tuesday, a far cry from the few dozen people who gathered for the first races 40 years ago. On the one hand, this is a strong sign of how far the LGBTQIA community has come in the city. But embracing the urban establishment comes with its own, more short-lived costs.

“It’s very similar to the Pride parade, which of course is now full of corporate sponsorship,” says Rückgauer. “It's about cleaning up or glossing over all the problems we still face. Because we're not there. We are one vote away in Congress from being sent back to the 1950s. The casual viewer might just look and think, Oh, there's a gay parade. They don't understand the messages we shouted about equality and safety in the 70s and 80s. It’s an event, but the meaning is just lost in the noise.”

This story has been updated.

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