DC Councilman Blames Pizza Slices for Late Night Violence

Washington, DC Councilman Jim Graham wats to take a bit out of crime in the Adams Morgan neighborhood by cracking down on single-slice pizza sales.

What's unclear, of course, is what effect, if any, such a ban would have: by shuttering local businesses, you'd still have inebriated bar partorns walking down the street, and, presumably, still bumping into one another and getting into fights.

They'd only be hungrier.

Unless Graham is prepared to argue that pizza is a gateway drug, his overall position is somewhat tenuous.On a street populated by bars and strip clubs, one risks one's crediblity by blaming a pizza shop for that street's woes.

When I lived in South London, the chip shops on Mitcham Road were flashpoints for brawls, which occurred nightly. Sunday nights, when the chippies closed earlier, were no exception in terms of brawls: they just took place on the pavement. Or up against my ground-floor window. Mr. Graham, pizza doesn't cause fights any more than chips do.