______________________________________						
						     )
Applications for License Renewal and for	     )
Termination of Voluntary Agreements between )		   		
and Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance,      )
Inc. and the following Licensees:		     )
						     )
Jaime T. Carrillo t/a Don Jaime’s Restaurant;     )		License No.  21915
						     )
NHV Corp. t/a Haydee’s Restaurant.		     )		License No.  24663
______________________________________ )

Statement of Haydee Vanegas
Hearing of February 13, 2008

My name is Haydee Vanegas. I have owned Haydee’s Restaurant in Mount Pleasant since 1997. I live in Mount Pleasant with my husband, Mario Alas, and our two children, both of whom were born in Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant is our home. I have 10 employees and their jobs at my restaurant help support a total of 19 children.

Before I opened Haydee’s Restaurant I owned another restaurant on Mount Pleasant Street called Trolley’s. I bought Trolley’s in 1990 when I was a young girl of 21. This is where I first came under attack by certain people in the neighborhood, including Joan Gordon, Russell Smith, Alice Kelly and Rob Fleming. I believe these people were later part of the MPNA. This group tried to stop me from getting a liquor license and accused me of not being the real owner of Trolley’s. They claimed I was being used as a front by someone else and that I was just employed there for the purpose of attracting Latino men. They demanded proof of every dollar I had used to buy the place and forced me to go to a trial at the ABC Board. I remember once at an ANC meeting in 1992 or 1993 someone who I believe was Laurie Collins stood up and said about me, “This lady attracts too many Latinos with her short skirts and low-cut shirts.” I was deeply hurt and embarrassed by all these accusations.

Trolley’s always had music. During the week we would have piano music, and country or bluegrass music. On weekend nights we would have the mariachis.

When I was opening Haydee’s and going through the process of getting my ABC license, I signed many documents, including an agreement with MPNA. This was in 1997. None of the documents were in Spanish and I could not read English very well. I did not realize I had signed an agreement with the MPNA. I never intended to give up my right to have music in my restaurant, and I did not understand that I had signed an agreement that banned music. In fact, we did have the mariachis at Haydee’s a couple of times after I first got my license. Once Mayor Barry came to Haydee’s and we had mariachis that time. I did not realize at first that I was not allowed to have any live music. We had always had music at Trolley’s and I had planned to do the same at Haydee’s. The second time we had the mariachis, Joan Gordon and her husband came into my restaurant and told me to come out into the back alley with them. Joan Gordon started yelling at me about the mariachis and told me I did not have the right to have any live music anymore. I was very upset after Joan left, and I had to fire all the mariachis. I said, “Mariachis, you have to go!” Joan is very hard, she made me very scared. Joan and Laurie hated the mariachis.

Mario and I wanted to get the music back and we asked our lawyer to help us. MPNA had a revised agreement they wanted us to sign. This one also banned music and dancing, and also prevented us from selling our license. Laurie Collins invited us to come to a meeting at her house. My husband Mario and I attended the meeting along with our lawyer. Laurie was there, with Russell Smith, who I believe was MPNA’s lawyer, and Joan Gordon and her husband. The meeting was to discuss the voluntary agreements. Laurie said she did not want the mariachis, she said they attracted “drunk Latinos.” She said the mariachis were “cheap,” and “cheap mariachis attract cheap Latinos.” I was emotionally crushed by this and I have never been able to forget those words. Laurie and her friends always said they represented the community. They made me feel that everyone hated me. But we would not sign the revised agreement because we did not think we should be forced to give up our rights.

After this meeting at which we said we would not sign, all of a sudden inspectors began to show up at the restaurant all the time. All kinds of inspectors – fire, health, ABC, police. Mostly ABC inspectors. Sometimes they would come every day, and sometimes twice a day. Hundreds of inspectors visited us during the course of the year and a few months during which we were fighting against the voluntary agreement. As many as 8 inspectors showed up at one time. Sometimes they acted very angry, as if they had heard things about us that made them mad. Sometimes they said abusive things. They never found any violations, but they scared our customers and took so much of my time that I could not run the business or serve the customers. It was horrible like this for over a year while the process at the ABC board unfolded. During the time we were resisting the voluntary agreement, I paid over 35,000 dollars for lawyers and for all the documents I had to produce for all the different inspectors.

Finally, my lawyer advised me to give up and sign the agreement in order to get the inspections to stop, because it was overwhelming. It was clear that I had no choice but to sign or lose my business. I did not sign voluntarily. I badly wanted to have live music, and for all these years since then it has hurt me that I can not have it. After I stopped having the live music my customers were upset. The music belonged to them too, and they were upset that their music had been taken away from them.

As soon as I signed the agreement, the inspections stopped. But then people started asking to have parties and other events with music and dancing – the Latin American Youth Center, Christmas parties, birthday parties, wedding receptions. Some people wanted a place that their bands could play. I had to say no to hundreds of people, and I know that I lost thousands of dollars. Many of my customers started going to Virginia and Maryland instead. What I don’t understand is that two or three people said “no” to mariachis, but thousands of people say “yes.” Why should we be condemned, forever, to a band on music, just for these few people. Laurie and Joan said that the VA was “forever,” that I’d never be able to bring the mariachis back. My customers asked me, “Where are your mariachis?” They would say to me, “I used to feel good here. I used to bring my mother here. How can this be a lifetime agreement?” Many of my customers were very angry at the “white people” who did this. It created division within the community. I felt I had to defend my white customers sometimes: It’s not all white people who did this, it’s just a couple.

Just because there is music does not mean there will be problems. It’s good to have entertainment. Nice music helps people not to be depressed, and they see that life is not so lonely. Music brings people together. It gives them something in common.

I now have another Haydee’s Restaurant on Georgia Avenue. People come there for their school parties and their birthday parties. The ANC comes there. We have mariachis, and jazz music, and African-American music, and sometimes bluegrass music. The music does not cause problems. People don’t drink a lot because they can’t dance if they drink too much. The cover charge is a good thing, because only the people who really want to be there for the music will come in. The cover charge prevents troublemakers from coming in. It’s a very important management tool, and it also allows you to pay the musicians fairly for their work.

For years, Laurie Collins made me feel like everybody was against me, like I hurt the community. She tried to convince me she represented the whole community. Sometimes I have doubted myself, and thought, “Is it true what she says about this place?” But now things are very different. Everything has changed. The whole community knows what happened, and thousands of people know that what happened was wrong. Now I know how much people love me in this neighborhood, and how they want to help me fight to get my rights back so I can offer the community a place where they can hold their events and come and enjoy music and dancing together. For the first time I feel really happy about having a business in Mount Pleasant, because now I know that I have thousands of friends here.

When the MPNA agreement is terminated, then I will be able to give much more to the neighborhood. And if the community likes what I do, I will make more profits -- and I’m already thinking of the improvements and renovations I can make to my restaurant once it is more profitable. That’s what we did at our Georgia Avenue restaurant, and that’s what we want to do in our Mount Pleasant restaurant too.

I have been owning and operating restaurants all of my adult life. I know what good management is. I don’t need anyone putting restrictions on me. I am responsible for my business and I have always been responsible to the community. This is my community, it is where I live. I want to contribute more, not less. This is why I ask the Board to terminate the agreement with MPNA. It was not voluntary. It hurt me and my family and my customers. I have been under the control of a few MPNA people for 10 years. I do not want to be under the control of MPNA ever again. My attorney and I have worked very hard with many other people and groups in the neighborhood to come up with a new agreement that is consistent with what the majority of the community wants. This is the Hear Mount Pleasant Agreement. I ask the Board, please terminate the MPNA agreement and replace it with the Hear Mount Pleasant Agreement.