Between the demands of my real job and the distraction of
the Olympics, I’ve been left with little discretionary time for blogging in the
past few weeks. That being said I have a number of subjects that I intended to
post about so, to clear my mental backlog, here are a few things that have been rolling around in my head.
Wegmans Liquor Store
It’s not over yet. The store owner, Chris O’Donnell fumbled
the ball badly in his application for a liquor license with the Alcoholic
Beverage Hearing Board and his opponents ate his lunch. As Lindsey McPherson
reported in her article in Explore Howard, “only one person not directly
affiliated with the application testified in support of it.”
The opponents, existing liquor store owners who don’t want the
competition, turned out in force to oppose this store. Attorneys representing Kings Contrivance Liquor
Store and Smoke Shop, Glenwood Wine & Spirits, and Perfect Pour successfully
argued that O’Donnell’s local partner, Mike Smith was a poor choice to run a liquor store. Board member Anne Santos agreed.
Smith "presented
himself as a pretty uneducated potential owner," Santos
"His liquor
experience, he testified, was an interest in craft beers," Santos
I predict that the decision will be appealed and next time around O’Donnell
will have a partner who knows something about running a liquor store.
The Wire
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I finally got around to
watching the HBO series The Wire. In the sixth episode of the
final season, I was surprised to see our county exec in a cameo role as a reporter. It was nice to see him on the other side of the podium for once.
The Good Life Redux?
The word on the street in Ellicott City
is that the former proprietors of the Good Life Shop, Steve Archuleta and Randy
Neely, are back in town and planning on opening another store.
Lost Weekend
Last week Tales of Cities was a victim of a software glitch with Site Meter, an audience measuring device embedded in this blog. While “moving
their servers” they inadvertently wiped out all visits to Tales of Two Cities from
Thursday and Friday last week. After calling their attention to the problem they were able to restore those days but wiped out Saturday and
Sunday stats in the process.
Double Rainbow Redux
For the second time this summer and in my life, on July 16th, I witnessed anther double
rainbow in our Ellicott City neighborhood. That has to be a good omen but I’m just not sure of what.
