The Silver Spring Penguin

On Monday night, one state delegate was caught in a compromising situation: Laundry day.

“Isn’t it ugly?” Del. Tom Hucker insisted of his tee shirt, a royal blue souvenir from the Cherry Blossom Ten-Mile Run. “I didn’t have anything else to wear.”

The usually dapper district 20 Dem was inside downtown’s Panera Bakery when he was caught in his laundry-day duds. Still, he stopped to chat about the Birchmere deal, or lack thereof.

Hucker said he didn’t know why negotiations to bring the nightclub to Silver Spring collapsed. At one point, he’d heard that the Birchmere was insisting on more space behind the venue, so that tour buses could maneuver easily.

He also guessed that the county grew tired of negotiating. After five years of talks, and after earmarking a combined $4 million in county and state funds, the Birchmere wasn’t close to moving into the old JC Penney site.

Had the deal been sealed, the nightclub would have had one floor for cocktail tables and a stage, Hucker described. But it also would have had a second-floor seating balcony overlooking the stage.

Hucker said he was surprised that more constituents hadn’t complained about the end of talks, given the neighborhood’s previous enthusiasm for the Birchmere’s expansion.

But he seemed encouraged at the prospect of another venue moving into the area. The county is speaking with Live Nation to open a 2,000-seat Filmore club on Colesville Road, according to the Washington Post.

“I think it’s like the 9:30 Club,” Hucker said, his face lighting up like his loud, laundry-day tee shirt.

“That would be cool,” he said.