DC group backs petition to remove Trump Hotel’s liquor license based on ‘moral character’

A local Washington, D.C. neighbor advisory commission is joining a petition to strip the Trump International Hotel of its liquor license, citing the president’s moral character as a reason.

Fox News reports that D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC 4C) announced it will join a complaint filed in June with the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration against the Trump hotel, arguing that president’s “long history of telling lies” and “failure to abide by the law and to repudiate associations with known criminals” were grounds for the license’s cancellation.

{mosads}Zach Teutsch, the commissioner of ANC 4C, told Fox News that while his group does not represent the specific neighborhood in which the Trump hotel sits, they would still join the complaint. The group representing the area of D.C. where the hotel is built, ANC 2C, has no reported plans to join the protest.

“What the complaint says is that the owner of the Trump International Hotel doesn’t meet that definition and so ABRA, the Alcohol Beverage Regulation Administration, should take action,” Teusch said, denying to Fox that the move was a political stunt.

ANC 2C’s chairman John Tinpe disagreed, telling Fox News that the owner’s moral character was not usually considered by the board.

“Now, if there is criminal activity, that is different,” Tinpe said. “But the subject of character is something different.”

The Trump Organization dismissed the protest as a “frivolous” complaint in a statement to Fox News.

“The complaint is patently frivolous and an obvious attempt to harass and to distort the law for political gain. Politics has no place in the licensing process and this complaint is an assault on the hundreds of employees who count on the property for their employment and livelihoods,” a spokesperson said.