Baskin Robbins now open in Montgomery Village

Baskin Robbins is now open at 19316 Montgomery Village Avenue, in the Montgomery Village Center. I like the lighted logo signs that have the number 31 embedded in the letters, and the main one over the storefront seems to be inspired by the colors of their Cotton Candy flavor ice cream. The Flavor of the Month is Love Potion #31 for Valentine's Day, with white chocolate and raspberry flavored ice creams mixed with raspberry-filled chocolate-flavored hearts, raspberry swirls, and chocolate-flavored chips. More good news: Cookie Monster, initially a Flavor of the Month for July 2023, was so well-received that it became a permanent flavor on the menu.

Montgomery County to host meeting on security at houses of worship Feb. 21

Montgomery County officials will host a special meeting regarding security at houses of worship on February 21, 2024, from 7:00 - 9:00 PM. The meeting will be held in Bethesda, at a location to be announced only to those who register. "Attacks on houses of worship continue to occur at an alarming rate," a meeting announcement states. The meeting will feature presentations by representatives from the Montgomery County Police Department, the Fire and Explosives Investigation Unit of the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service, and the County's Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. 

Attendees will learn how to "minimize the risk of violent intruders," and what to do in the event of an attack on their house of worship. A menorah was vandalized outside a synagogue in Olney last December, and a suspect desecrated and attempted to burn down two Christian churches - and vandalized a Baptist cemetery - along Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda in July 2022. Meeting registration is open online now.

Photo courtesy Montgomery County

MD Retailers Association revives effort to allow beer, wine sales in Maryland grocery stores

MRA poster inside Harris Teeter

One of the biggest shocks to the system many new residents of Montgomery County experience, is the moment they learn they cannot purchase beer or wine at their local grocery store or convenience store. They quickly become familiar with Montgomery County's government monopoly on alcohol sales, and the archaic liquor laws of MoCo and Maryland. Restaurateurs and retailers frustrated with the status quo that reduces the profit margins of their businesses - and puts them at a disadvantage when competing against their rivals in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia - made a push to change these laws in the last decade. The effort ran out of steam when no significant media campaign or financial contributions were employed to directly boost the candidates for office who would vote to overturn the Prohibition-style system.

Now the Maryland Retailers Association is reviving the campaign with a new website, and posters such as the one seen above this week in County supermarkets. There is a lot of information and data on the website. It has an easy way to contact your elected officials to encourage them to modernize our liquor laws. Whether the effort will be any more successful than the last remains to be seen.

If the MRA and business owners don't write fat checks to the candidates who will vote to change the laws, and won't publicly endorse those candidates and send glossy mailers with a list of their names to every voter, the campaign will fail again. Most of the articles linked to on the website are from media outlets who strongly support the incumbents and candidates who favor and will preserve the ossified government liquor monopoly we have now. That's not exactly a smart way to propagandize the public in favor of liquor reform, folks.

Former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich was prophetic about many things. He was savagely pilloried by local officials and the media during his time in office for supporting casinos and bus rapid transit. Both later became policy cornerstones of the Montgomery County and Maryland political machines of his most-venomous opponents. One other thing he used to say that has aged very well: Until business owners "get dangerous," and actually back candidates - Democratic, Republican, Green, independent - who will vote their way, nothing will change. The MRA has a nice website. But their campaign doesn't sound very "dangerous" yet.

The UPS Store to open at Montgomery Village Center

The UPS Store is "coming soon" to the Montgomery Village Center, according to signage posted at its future storefront. It will be at 19226 Montgomery Village Avenue. There is an existing Montgomery Village UPS Store location at the Goshen Oaks shopping center. The UPS Store offers shipping, printing, mailbox and shredding services.

Fiesta Laundromat opens in Montgomery Village

Fiesta Laundromat is now open at the Montgomery Village Center. It can handle any size load you have. There are machines for Double Load, Triple Load, Giant Load and Mega Load. As you can see, it looks super-clean and well-lit inside. This location of Fiesta Laundromat is so new that there is no website, and no reviews posted online that I can find.

Jessa Medical Supply relocates in Gaithersburg

New location

Jessa Medical Supply has relocated its Gaithersburg store - but not far. It has moved from 112 Market Street to 235 Kentlands Boulevard. That is the former Loyal Companion space, next to Supertooth. The new location is scheduled to open for business today, Thursday, February 1, 2024.

Old location cleared out Wednesday ahead
of today's opening in the new storefront

Another attempt to restore Office of the People's Counsel in Montgomery County

Montgomery County's government bodies - Board of Education, Montgomery Parks, the Montgomery County Planning Board, to name three recent examples - are in disarray, and have been embroiled in scandals. Incredibly, while holding oversight power, the County Council has actively chosen to not restore funding for a position that can help hold the County's planning authorities (including the Council itself) more accountable to residents and taxpayers: The Office of the People's Counsel. Never a popular position among the developers who have funded most or all of the councilmembers' campaigns this century, depending upon which Council term is under discussion, the OPC was axed in 2010 when the Council finally had an excuse to do so: a budget crisis of their own making. But in 2023, more than a decade after the "Great Recession" ended, the current Council still voted against restoring funding for the OPC.

Fed-up residents and responsible growth advocates are launching a new attempt to persuade councilmembers - some of whom vowed to fund the OPC, but then betrayed the voters and organizations they made the vow to, once in office - to restore the OPC in the FY-2025 budget. The Montgomery Countryside Alliance, which works to protect rural areas, open space and streams from impacts of overdevelopment, is taking a leadership role by creating an easy form to send a brief message to the County Council in support of funding for the OPC.

For those not familiar, the OPC is (or was!) a land-use attorney who provides free advice and technical information to residents regarding development and land-use issues. Residents, most of whom cannot afford the kind of powerhouse legal representation that developers and the County itself have at their disposal, can therefore be better prepared to defend their interests before the Planning Board, County Council and hearing examiners. The OPC can also point out when the Board or Council is in violation of the rules or breaking the law, which non-land-use-attorney citizens may not be able to recognize their own. Perhaps most importantly, the People's Counsel can represent residents' interests in administrative hearings.

Boosting hopes for the return of this critical County government position is Bill PG/MC 112-24 at the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis, which is sponsored by Senator Ben Kramer of Montgomery County. Senator Kramer has also been a leading voice to make the planning process in the County more directly accountable to residents, such as considering proposals to move some aspects of planning under the executive branch of County government. Kramer's bill would fully fund the Office of the People's Counsel in Montgomery County, just as other jurisdictions like Prince George's County have. In other words, Kramer is saying to the Council, "if you won't do it, we will." But, if you don't use this form to send a message to the Council and the full Montgomery County delegation to Annapolis in favor of funding the OPC, they might not!