NOISE: Ocean City Council will
TTYL BULLIES: New line of T-shirts
take action to prevent ’music wars’ on Boardwalk, as stores crank up the volume to attract customers PAGE 11
aims to bring bullying at local schools to an end. The shirts, available online, use abbreviations commonly used in texting PAGE 34
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: BUSINESS . . . . . . . . . 34 CLASSIFIED . . . . . . . . 60 ENTERTAINMENT . . . . 45 LEGALS . . . . . . . . . . . 24
LIFESTYLE . . . . . . . . . 41 OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . 16 OUT&ABOUT . . . . . . . . 56 SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . 36
WORCESTER PREP BOYS FALL BY THREE TO ROYALS…PAGE 36
Ocean City Today WWW.OCEANCITYTODAY.NET
JANUARY 13, 2012
FREE
FRANCHOT AT ODDS WITH COUNTY LIQUOR DISPENSARY...AGAIN Purchase from Alabama must be returned or penalties will follow,comptroller’s office says NANCY POWELL ■ Staff Writer (Jan. 13, 2012) It might be a new department, but the circumstances have a familiar ring to them, as an obviously peeved Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot is again promising to
come down hard on Worcester County’s government liquor dispensary. This time, the county’s new Department of Liquor Control bought some spirits from the state of Alabama in October, an illegal act, according to Franchot, who apparently had brought the
situation to the attention of department head Robert Cowger previously. “Allow me to be as clear as Comptroller possible,” FranPeter Franchot chot wrote in his Jan. 9 letter to Cowger. “First, your purchase of alcohol from the State of Alabama was illegal.”
He said Alabama had no license or permit at the time to sell liquor into Maryland and that would make it an unlawful supplier to the county department. Secondly, Franchot wrote, the issuance of a permit to the state of Alabama after the fact would not retroactively legitimize that sale. Maryland has no statute that would retroactively legitimize an illegal transaction of this kind through the issuance of
a license or permit. He said his department regards the Alabama shipment to the Worcester County Department of Liquor Control to be contraband and the county should return the inventory to Alabama. “Regardless of what you ultimately decide to do with the shipment, it cannot, under any circumstances, be brought into the state of Maryland,” Franchot wrote. See STATE on Page 3
PG Co. deputy sheriff guilty of assault in resort
Candles for Ava Community comes together for child critically injured in December crash
NANCY POWELL ■ Staff Writer
we have three or four horses in town, so we know who to point to and say ‘clean this up,’” Martin said. “If you added horses on the beach, that would mix with some people surfing, some peo-
(Jan. 13, 2012) The Prince George’s County deputy sheriff who drew her gun and pointed it at another young woman in downtown Ocean City in August faces up to 10 years in prison after being found guilty Monday of secondJ. Douglas degree assault. In Circuit Court in Snow Hill, Judge Thomas C. Groton III said it was obvious that the defendant, Jennifer Nicole Douglas, 26, of Fort Washington, and her witnesses had altered their testimony because it conflicted with what they had told an Ocean City policeman after the incident. “There’s no exact testimony,” he said, but he added that he found the state’s witnesses more credible than the witnesses for the defense. None of the testimony justified pulling a gun, he said. The chain of events started Aug. 14 when Ebonee Duhe came to Ocean City with five others and then learned two more women would be joining them. One of
See COUNCIL on Page 3
See PG COUNTY on Page 4
PHOTO COURTESY LINDA GRUBER PHOTOGRAPHY
The Rev. Father Stanislao Esposito of St. Mary’s Star of Sea and Holy Savior Catholic churches in Ocean City holds a candle and prays during a Jan. 7 vigil on 142nd Street. See additional photos on Pages 12-13.
Manure management key regarding horseback riding on OC beach TOM RISEN ■ Staff Writer (Jan. 13, 2012) The Ocean City Council’s approval Tuesday to allow horseback riding on the beach during the winter months
might hinge on the council’s getting public input on the horses’ output. The issue of what horses might deposit on the beach led Council Secretary Lloyd Martin to cast the only opposing vote
against creating an ordinance that would allow horseback riding on the beach during the offseason. “We need to make sure somebody is accountable for what is done on the beach. Right now