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.