While some county liquor store owners are up in arms over the passage of a state bill that may require them to close at midnight, many others remain unaffected or unfazed by the adjustment.
Last week, the Maryland General Assembly passed a bill that will require Prince George’s County liquor stores to stop selling alcohol at midnight. County Executive Jack Johnson had asked legislators to pass the bill, which originally stalled in a committee but made it to Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s (R) desk as an amendment to a bill rescinding the liquor license for the demolished Capital Center.
Johnson supported the bill as a means of controlling crime associated with liquor stores in Prince George’s County, which tend to attract late-night customers from neighboring counties and Washington after their stores have closed, he said.
The bill angered liquor store managers, including Vansandha Kumar, who said his Langley Park store Tick Tock Liquors gets 25 to 30 percent of its business between midnight and 2 a.m. Customers come to Tick Tock from the university, Washington and Montgomery County, he said; and they range from late-night workers to all-night revelers.
His business hired a lobbyist to oppose the bill, but even after it stalled in a committee in the House of Delegates, Sen. Leo Green (D-Prince George’s) passed the restrictions as an amendment to a bill deleting a liquor license left over from the Capital Center.
“I don’t think it will solve anything,” Kumar said. “People will just get drunk in the nightclubs; drunk in the streets … they say it will fix crime, but I say it will create crime.”
Charles Stolting, owner of Chuck’s Liquors in Mount Rainier, feared shorter hours in Prince George’s County would just push late-night liquor-seekers further out toward places like Anne Arundel County, where liquor stores are allowed to stay open late.
“They should have uniformity,” Stolting said. “If they do it they should make it statewide … otherwise you promote drinking and driving.”
But many other liquor store owners, like Yuni Lee, manager of Crown Liquors in Hyattsville, said their businesses would not suffer much because they already kept shorter hours, only staying open after midnight on weekends.
Similarly, Orbit Beer and Wine, across from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, stays open late on some weekends and attracts mostly local business after midnight, said owner Harman Sangh.
Near the Washington border in District Heights, Avenue Liquors manager Suman Patel felt that midnight was an acceptable closing time — he could feel safer while only forfeiting a few customers the store gets when it stays open until 1 a.m. on weekends, he said.
Some students were also unconcerned by the narrower hours for College Park’s late-night liquor stores, vowing to shop earlier and stock up more.
“If I wanted to buy a beer at 12:30, I might be upset,” said university graduate student Kyle Gustafson. “But if somebody really wants to get wasted, they’ll just go out and buy early.”
