Flagship Car Wash shut down in Montgomery County

Longtime car cleaning business

asks for customers' help

WJLA ABC7 reporter Kevin Lewis witnessed Maryland State Police drive up and blockade the Flagship Car Wash on Chapman Avenue near the Rockville Target store early Sunday afternoon. The company confirmed to Lewis that MSP officers had shut down four Flagship locations across Montgomery County Sunday. Flagship also has locations in the District and Virginia.

Flagship's owner told Lewis that the services her business was providing were compliant with a written directive from the state regarding which "essential" auto maintenance services could be offered during the statewide coronavirus shutdown. I can confirm this is true, because Flagship had announced way back on March 25 that they were limiting services in Rockville to exterior cleaning only,  with machine-operated automatics, self-service and vacuums to be open 24 hours. Exterior cleaning by employees was not even listed for the other two upcounty, just the automatic and self-serve options.

Later Sunday, Flagship asked its customers on Facebook to share the ABC7 story to support their business. MSP told Lewis that car washes are not an essential service, and that the Flagship location in MoCo should remain closed.