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13 Businesses Donald Trump Can’t Have at His Old Post Office Hotel

Bad news for people who were expecting the hotel to feature a tackle shop or a blood bank.
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Future home of a luxury hotel, but no dentists. Photograph by Flickr user Shaun Farrell.

Donald Trump has repeatedly promised that the hotel he plans to make out of the Old Post Office will be “amazing,” “incredible,” and “the best” at every detail from the fixtures in the bathrooms to the ground-floor retail.

But the General Services Administration isn’t taking any chances. Deep in the documents that govern the Trump Organization’s 60-year lease with the GSA are prohibitions against subleases to certain kinds of business. Even if Trump designs the world’s most opulent fish and tackle shop, it turns out, he won’t be able to put it in the Old Post Office, according to the GSA documents, which were first obtained by the Washington Times.

In addition to bait shops, here are some of the other types of retail that won’t be at the Trump hotel when it opens in 2016:

  • Lawn and garden stores
  • Flea markets
  • Strip clubs and topless cabarets
  • Sex toy shops 
  • Bail bondsmen
  • Discount jewelers
  • Automotive supply stores
  • Tattoo artists
  • Laundromats
  • Blood banks
  • Drug dealers
  • Dentists

In fairness to the GSA, it’s probably impossible to find a developer who would make a prohibition on dental offices a dealbreaker.

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Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.