Out of Control Party at Airbnb Spot

A Jan. 30 party that rapidly expanded from about 20 people to 150 at a small Airbnb rental property on Georgetown’s Cherry Hill Lane was shut down by police after a neighbor reported it. The crowd, which neighbor Dean Maxwell said he “characterized as a flash mob” to police, grew from 20 to 60 people in an hour before he called the police around midnight. By the time a police officer responded, approximately 25 minutes later, there were about 150 people, he said. According to Maxwell, the responding officer, who called for backup as soon as he saw the size of the party, said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in Georgetown.”

“I don’t want to racially profile the situation, but it was an entirely black guest list,” said Maxwell. “They were nicely dressed. They weren’t hooligans looking for hooligan activity,” he added. According to Maxwell, when the crowd saw the police car they took off running down the hill toward the Potomac, but stopped and turned around when a fight broke out. That was about the time six or seven additional police cars arrived, cordoned off the street and dispersed the party, he said, noting that there were “broken bottles — peach schnapps everywhere — the next day.” No arrests were made, as no laws were found to be broken, one of the officers told him.