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CROSS-TOWN MATCH-UPS Stephen Decatur and Worcester Prep boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams battle it out – Page 37
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MAY 1, 2015
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If you got ‘em, smoke ‘em but be sure to do it near one of several designated smoking areas
By Zack Hoopes Staff Writer (May 1, 2015) If you didn’t take the opportunity this morning to have one last smoke on the Boardwalk, you’ve missed your chance. Ocean City’s beach and Boardwalk smoking restrictions go into effect today - Friday, May 1 - banning both traditional smokes as well as electronic cigarettes from the Boardwalk and anywhere on the beach outside of designated areas. Those areas are marked with orange butt cans, placed intermittently in the sand from the pier up to 142nd Street. South of the pier, cans will be located on the concrete walkways between the boards and the inlet parking lot. Smoking or vaping must be done within 15 feet of the butt cans. In addition to signage on the beach access ramps and on the cans themselves, signs have also been placed along the sidewalks of streets approaching the boards, letting people know to chuck their smokes before they get close. For the coming season, however, enforcement will remain casual. “At first, it’s just going to be education,” said Ocean City Police Department Public Information Officer
Lindsay Richard. “Officers will be giving out cards with a short description of the ordinance and where to find the smoking areas.” Violation of the smoking policy can be ticketed up to $500, but this will hopefully be rare. “Definitely this first summer, it’s primarily education, unless someone is blatantly being uncooperative,” Richard said. “We’re not really planning to go out actively looking for people smoking. If we get a call, or if an officer sees it during normal Boardwalk patrol, they’ll stop and say something and give the person a card.” Passage of the smoking restriction ordinance came after years of stop-and-go discussion by city leaders, whose major apprehension was that the creation of designated smoking zones would effectively concentrate the smoke in certain areas, and would thus be problematic on the crowded Boardwalk. Now, with a total smoking ban on the boards, the hope is See POLICE on Page 6
ARRRGH-GRAVATED ON ROUTE 90 After being stranded in backed-up traffic close to an hour, motorists heading into Ocean City via Route 90 were plenty mad Tuesday morning. Advisories the week before said work on the highway – a small section between the St. Martin’s River Bridge and the Assawoman Bay Bridge was being re-paved – would begin at 9 a.m. That led commuters to believe they would be fine as long as they beat the clock. Problem was, the construction crews also beat the clock and began work early. The delays were over by Wednesday. JOSH DAVIS/OCEAN CITY TODAY
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B’walk artists regs get review And some couldn’t cut it legally in court
By Zack Hoopes Staff Writer (May 1, 2015) The greatest problem with governance by committee is that so many ideas, which seem great in the heat of discussion, turn out to be legally dubious at best and, at worst, downright unconstitutional. Ocean City’s long-sought ambition to exercise greater control over the “Wild West” of Boardwalk street performers was tempered a bit this week, as the City Council reviewed the recommendations passed on to it by the city’s Boardwalk Task Force The task force is a citizen committee that has met over the past several months to review the legal and logistical issues surrounding the proliferation of buskers on the boards. The city hired constitutional law firm Venable, LLP of Baltimore to advise and review the process, following a tumultuous summer last season dealing with street performers. The council’s review this week also included a draft ordinance, written by City Solicitor Guy Ayres, that included most – but not all – of the task force’s ideas. “I’ve included a memorandum from me as to why some of the task force’s recommendations should not be implemented,” Ayres said. Simply put, some of the ideas, Ayres found, were on See INSURANCE on Page 10
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