Both the Maryland House and Senate felt so far ahead of schedule on Friday that the lawmakers took the Easter weekend off, except for some committee work.
The 90-day session will likely end not with a frenetic rush, but with long lulls as members wait for negotiations to wrap up on legislation on which the chambers differ on points small and large.
“The last day there is going to be a massive amount of stalls,” Senate President Thomas Mike Miller predicted last week. “Come Monday, we?ll have a lot of time.”
Only lack of agreement on the budget could keep the legislators from heading home on Tuesday, and nobody really wants that. Too many vacation plans have been made.
Smokey New Year
The dwindling ranks of cigarette smokers will be largely ostracized to the outdoors or their own homes and cars, as a statewide smoking ban for bars and restaurants seems assured to pass today.
In resolving the differences between House and Senate versions, the implementation date was pushed back a month, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 1. “Oh, great, we?ll have a wonderful New Year?s Eve,” Sen. Katherine Klausmeier, D-Baltimore County, told the sponsor.
Senate Republican leader David Brinkley, Frederick, said he preferred to dine in smoke-free restaurants, but it should be up to the business to decide. “We might as well just ban tobacco,” he said, knowing full well that prohibition on alcohol and drugs didn?t prove to be stellar successes.
Liquored Up
One of the hangovers of the grand experiment of Prohibition ? one of the biggest boons to organized crime before the War on Drugs ? is the patchwork of local liquor laws written into the state code. This session, 63 bills regulating alcoholic beverages in almost every subdivision were introduced; 33 have been enacted.
This confusing array of statutes, with quirks in each county, regulates almost every aspect of the beer, wine and liquor business: the number and kinds of licenses, the range of products available, the hours of operation, the salary of inspectors, the penalties for offenses. Carroll County upped its quota for licenses, Baltimore County raised the number any person or corporation could hold to seven, Frederick County will let wineries set up tables and chairs for patrons, the towns of Kensington and Damascus in Montgomery County got new licenses for bar-restaurants. Can a bar sell carryout six-packs? How many white-tablecloth restaurants will be permitted? The Legislature will let you know.
Smokers and the few businesses left to cater to them have a lot to look forward to.
Len Lazarick is the State House bureau chief of The Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
