Letters to the Editor

We welcome your opinions and letters – with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on line, click here

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Multiple Liquor Licenses Mean More Choices

Dear Bay Weekly:

I respectfully disagree with Bay Weekly’s Jan. 12 [Vol. xiv, No. 2] editorial in opposition to multiple liquor licenses.

As the sponsor who enacted legislation that expanded the number of allowable licenses from one to two in certain designated areas of Anne Arundel County (House Bill 62, 2000 Session), I have not witnessed the alleged “doom of locally owned eateries.”

In fact, consumers have generally lauded their expanded dining choices, and recent surveys have signaled the public’s desire for even more.

Anne Arundel County can no longer afford to be a backwater, protectionist county shielding certain interests from competition in the marketplace, and expanded dining choices ought not to be viewed as a threat to established, locally owned restaurants.

—John R. Leopold,

Maryland Delegate, District 31

Smoking Is Anti-Libertarian

Dear Bay Weekly:

I was amazed by the way Edwin Cole distorted the facts about indoor air pollution due to tobacco smoke in his letter published in the January 12 edition of Bay Weekly [Vol. xiv, No. 2]. I was pleased that Bay Weekly followed his letter by printing the true facts on this issue.

Cole accused me of being anti-freedom. Au contraire, I am somewhat of a libertarian. I believe that Cole and all Americans have the freedom to do anything they choose as long as they do not infringe on the health, safety or comfort of others. Unfortunately, tobacco smoke is a Class A carcinogen, and nobody has the right to inflict this harmful substance on others.

Since tobacco kills more Americans each year than heroin, cocaine, marijuana and all other illegal drugs combined, I wonder if Mr. Cole can explain why tobacco should not be treated the same as these harmful substances.

P.S. You boast of a readership of "40,000 readers from Severna Park to Solomons." I think you are short changing yourself because I know many families here in Bowie and Crofton that read Bay Weekly. In fact, my daughter and son-in-law who live in Catonsville generally pilfer our copy when they come to visit us.

— John H. O’Hara, Bowie

Editor’s note: Bay Weekly is indeed distributed in Bowie along the Route 301 corridor and in Crofton.