Frederick County Legislative Delegation To Vote On Two Liquor Bills

Both were discussed at their last meeting,Md. State HouseFrederick, Md (KM) The Frederick County Legislative Delegation is expected to vote this week on whether to move two liquor bills forward in the General Assembly.One would require liquor stores which offer tastings to customers to limit the amount of wine, beer or other alcoholic beverages to no more than six ounces. “The problem is the configuration of those tastings when you provide a beer, a wine and a liquor, it gets convoluted,:” says Delegation Chair Jesse Pippy. . “This legislation is supposed to just clarify that they can offer any amount of those three things as long it doesn’t exceed a full drink.””We wanted to keep it very standard across the board that you drink six ounces of any beer or wine in a combination, but you can never exceed the six ounces. That’s a true tasting. Not a full beer,” says Dawn Shugars, the Director of the Frederick County  Liquor Board.She also says many of the liquor stores that participate had no objections. “We did put it back out: website; e-mail blast; lots of communications back out to get feedback, and even asked them as we were talking with them in site inspection. And no one was opposed to keeping it very limited to a tasting,” says Shugars.A bill sponsored by Frederick County Senator Karen Lewis Young would benefit the Met, a community theater located across the street from the Weinberg Center. “They serve beer and wine, but they wanted to do theme-related cocktails for the different shows,” says Senator Lewis Young. “So if they were doing something in the autumn, it would be pumpkin cocktail; or a mystery murder, it would be a mystery cocktail.”No objections were raised to the bill during the Delegation’s last meeting. But some said it should not be just the president of the theater which would sign the application for the license. “Here’s a recommended change,” Lewis Young said. “If you go to the second page of the legislation, line 16: ‘the manager of theater or any other official designated by the theater may sign the application for the license.’”The Delegation is expected to hold its next meeting on Friday, January 24th.By Kevin McManus