Craig,
Wow I got my butt kicked on this one, but finally figured it out. It's probably common knowledge but it was beyond me.

Turns out I'm trying to close the database from a form with a private datasession. It would never close the database unless I went to the command window and issued 'SET DATA TO'. After seeing this I assumed that since everything was working in the command window (which operates on the default datasession) I thought I should just use default datasession in the form. It works ok now. Not sure why this is the case. It seems strange that you can still close the DBC from a private datasession only AFTER issuing SET DATA TO in the default datasession. You would think it would be all or none.