Free Republic

The red neon sign was in place over the entrance and the shelves were neatly stocked with wines, whiskeys and vodkas. Sorab Dilawri was ready to launch his new liquor store on that corridor of D.C. cool known as H Street NE. Two days before opening in mid-September, just before dawn, burglars threw a brick through Dilawri’s window. They tipped over a row of shelves, smashing $10,000 worth of red wines and adding to the toll of crime jarring the neighborhood and city beyond. By mid-October, a month after H Street Liquors opened, Dilawri had swept up shattered glass from...