Baltimore banned liquor ads from most billboards in 1994, but they popped up recently in Remington and Hampden. Neighborhood leaders complained last week, and Clear Channel Communications agreed to take them down.
But neighbors shouldn't crack open the celebratory Smirnoff and Bud Ice just yet.
Even though a lawyer for Clear Channel said the liquor billboards were some sort of mistake - "This was not a test case," he said. "It was an operational issue." - he also asserted that they were legal. The lawyer, First Amendment attorney Eric Rubin, noted a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that rejected a Massachusetts cigarette advertising ban.
"Clear Channel will continue to voluntarily adhere to the Baltimore restrictions for the time being," Rubin said. "But this has crystallized the fact that this ordinance does conflict with a series of Supreme Court and federal court decisions that have invalidated restrictions."
He said he intends to meet with the city to discuss doing away with the restrictions.
City Solicitor George Nilson said he hasn't studied the Supreme Court decision, which was issued when he wasn't the city's lawyer. But he noted that after Baltimore passed the ban, which exempts industrial zones, some business districts and areas along interstates, the city defended it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Neil Janey was city solicitor back then, and Janey reminisced about that great legal battle recently in a letter to the city, which asked that it consider hiring him when it needs outside counsel. "One of his proudest accomplishments was to defend the sign ordinance," the letter said, according to Nilson.
So Nilson was amused when his office asked Clear Channel the name of its local counsel. The response: Neil Janey.
Janey told me he actually isn't Clear Channel's local counsel; Stanley Fine is. But Janey is working with Fine on a Clear Channel billboard matter - one that doesn't involve liquor ads.
Oil for the squeaky wheel
In a news release announcing that the liquor billboards were coming down, City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke thanked neighborhood leaders - Joan Floyd and Doug Armstrong of Remington, and George Peters of Hampden - for bringing the matter to light. Floyd and Armstrong, a married couple who have made a hobby of exposing neighborhood zoning violations, couldn't recall previous news-release kudos.
"It might indicate that Hell is starting to freeze over, Hon," Armstrong said, "when somebody of my pain-in-the-[keister] stature is getting thanked by the City of Baltimore."
One door shuts; another opens
There really is life after the Ehrlich administration.
Douglas DeLeaver, who spent 37 1/2 years in state law enforcement - as a state trooper, with the Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland Transit Administration, most recently as chief of MTA police - got the boot back in April.
DeLeaver is a Democrat. But then again, so is his daughter, Shareese DeLeaver, former spokeswoman for Bob Ehrlich. Not that politics would ever have anything to do with the hiring and firing of state employees!
The elder DeLeaver has landed a new job: president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement.
Just where were they transitioning?
Back when he was transitioning from mayor to governor, Martin O'Malley had a Web site, www.marylandtransition.com. The address still comes up in the top 10 when you Google The Gov.
But click on it these days, and instead of "Leadership that Works," we see pure leisure: Palm Garden Hotel/Apartments, whose Web site promises "The Best in Barbadian Hospitality."
That was news to the governor's office and to Palm Garden manager Edit Juman.
Wacky Web glitch? Pathetic political trick? No telling.
"I'm told the situation will be fixed in short order," said O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese.
Connect the dots
Alan Fabian, founder of the Centre for Management and Technology, suddenly felt like confessing yesterday during the unveiling of a new computer lab that his nonprofit group helped fund at Union Baptist Church, The Sun's Nicole Fuller reports. "I have to admit, I'm a Republican," Fabian said. The crowd, which included State's Attorney Pat Jessamy, City Councilman and mayoral candidate Keiffer Mitchell and Del. Shawn Tarrant, laughed politely as the Rev. Alvin Hathaway tried to smooth things over: "We're praying for you." ... Spotted flying first-class on Northwest from Detroit to BWI Tuesday night: Martin O'Malley, who was returning from the National Governors Association meeting. ... The Live Baltimore Home Center, which promotes city living, has a new window display at its Mount Vernon office that looks like a response to the soaring homicide numbers. It says, in great big letters: "LIVE."