Screening Restaurants

In recent years the trend in restaurant design has been towards an openness to the elements. This does not just mean more outdoor seating it means opening up the entire restaurant, European style, to the street with glass walls that can be folded back when the weather permits.

In Maryland, if you do this you better include a screen when you open up those walls. According to this story by Elahe Izadi in TBD, “restaurants and officials have only recently become aware of a regulation against open windows in restaurants, one that has long been a part of Maryland law. The rule is designed to prevent vermin infestation.”

The biggest impact of this newly enforced regulation is being felt in MoCo, particularly along Woodmont Avenue. In  HoCo the newly opened Stanford Grill is the only restaurant that I’m aware that will have to adjust to this rediscovered Maryland law.

And they will have to adjust. The potential penalty for non compliance “could technically cost a restaurant $1,000 or 90 days in jail.”