I was looking into the origins of Comet Ping Pong and the fact that they had purchased their sign (and hence their name) from an iconic old deli/liquorstore named Comet in Adams Morgan:

http://jewishfoodexperience.com/comet-liquors-deli-brightened-neighborhood/

I ran across this bizarre interview that James Alefantis did with the Metro Weekly, the DC gay magazine. I say bizarre because the interview not only focuses on his sex life, but he also has an unnatural preoccupation with his own childhood and with schools (in it, he mentions schools no less than six times, including grade schools):

http://www.metroweekly.com/2015/04/from-scratch-james-alefantis/

Here are some other unusual quotes from the Metro Weekly article:

“Restaurants are a bit like theater,” he says. “Every day is like a new show. The interior is like a set. So it fulfills a lot of my desires.”

"Yeah, I loved ping-pong. We played it at my family’s lake cottage in upstate New York, because my parents are from outside of Buffalo. I wanted a place that was really inclusive, where people would feel you could just jump in and play. You don’t have to be super-skilled. It’s for everyone. And it has the nostalgia. It reminds people of where they came from, or their childhood. I’ve seen kids born and now they’re starting to play ping-pong. They’re someday going to be like, 'Oh, this is the place I went every Friday night with my dad, and it was so cool. I could run around, I could play ping-pong, and it had the best food — best sundaes, best pizza, whatever.'”

In the same article, James Alefantis mentions that his friend Eric Hirshfield (the owner of Duplex Diner) was the one who originally suggested that he buy the Comet sign for his new restaurant. When I search Eric Hirshfield, the results contain more unusual mentions of childhood. On his Slate Properties agent page, it says:

Eric’s interest in real estate harkens back to his childhood play with building blocks and Monopoly, the board game.

http://www.slatepropertiesdc.com/?agent=eric

That's odd. In another gay media interview in the Washington Blade, Eric Hirshfield, it states that he had a 13-year bar mitzvah celebration for his restaurant Duplex Diner (also odd) and that he has Clinton administration official Bob Hattoy’s ashes in a martini shaker on a shelf behind the bar (very odd).

Then the article begins to describe Hirshfield's attraction to the property as a teenage homosexual love affair:

Referring to his decision to quit his job sporting a pocket protector as a civil engineer to open a community restaurant and bar “a seduction” that began three years prior to the Duplex Diner’s June 1998 opening, Hirshfield jokes that the hospitality industry is the “world’s second oldest profession” — if not the first.

Like a teenager constantly riding his bike down the street in front of a cute neighbor boy’s house, Hirshfield would walk by the abandoned property just north of 18th and U streets at the intersection with Florida Avenue, N.W., on the way home from his downtown office, pressing his face against the glass and dreaming of what it would be like to feel passion, excitement and commitment in his professional life.

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/07/14/duplex-diner-pioneer-hands-over-the-keys/

As if that wasn't enough, Hirshfield is known more recently for his real estate developments that include unusual features, such as marijuana grow rooms, as additional incentives to the buyers. You can't just come out and say this, however, so he exchanges knowing signals and phrases with prospective clients:

"So, I call it a grow closet. I stage it with other plants and herbs. With any conversations I have with my buyers, I call it a grow closet for herbs, but there's always a wink wink, and they understand."

http://dc.curbed.com/2015/10/23/9908008/marijuana-grow-closet-eric-hirshfield

I think that there is something more here. Any weaponized 'pedes willing to take this trail deeper into Eric Hirshfield? This may be an important link, especially considering his stated connection to a Clinton administration official. This is all I can do for now...