ANNAPOLIS — Senator Jim Mathias says the bill he’s spearheading to get public schools all across the state to start the school year post-Labor Day is a bill “worthy of revisiting” after it received little traction last session.
Mathias filed that bill, and two other locally-focused bills, late last week continuing what has proved to be a busy session for the Democrat thus far, with his name attached to more than 80 pieces of legislation on the senate side of the Maryland General Assembly.
Fresh off voting to sustain Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of the bill that would grant voting rights to 40,000 ex-offenders in the state, which was overturned earlier this week in Annapolis, Mathias took the time to chat about three of the local bills he hopes to get pushed through this session.
Senate Bill 967 deals with a Class A beer, wine and liquor license. Mathias says this bill is just the latest and may likely be one of the final steps in the seemingly inevitable dissolution of the Worcester County Department of Liquor Control.
“The entire way through all the years of this process, I have worked hard to make sure we are taking the proper steps that we need to take at the proper time,” said Mathias.
This bill would establish a Class A beer, wine, and liquor license in Worcester County, which essentially grants private businesses the ability to add liquor to their existing beer and wine carryout sales and establishes an annual fee of $4,500.
For years, all liquor had to be purchased at a county-run retail store for off-site or carry-out consumption, but now that the longstanding monopoly has been broken up, and the county is mapping out its exit strategy from the liquor business, this bill could provide the break private business owners have been waiting for. The Worcester County Commissioners wanted Mathias to add a caveat into the language of the bill that would not allow a Class A license to be granted to any store that was within 10 miles of the existing county run retail stores, so that they could sell the remaining inventory and eventually the stores outright, but that language is not in the first draft of the bill.
“I know the County Commissioners want to achieve as much financial wholeness as they can but I don’t want to thwart private business or capital investment,” Mathias said. “So, I encouraged them to work with the industry to find a compromise. I imagine they will come to some sort of a compromise and that means this bill might change a little bit in the language.”
Back in 2012, a bill was passed that inadvertently put certain types of amusement games found on the Ocean City Boardwalk into the same category as slot machines and were thusly regulated by the State Lottery and Gaming Control Commission.
Mathias’ Senate Bill 967 would exclude those types of games, namely, the arcade games that award prizes like iPads or video game consoles.
“We have to preserve the legacy of these arcades on the Ocean City Boardwalk,” said Mathias. “These are family run arcades, not slot machines, so we hope this bill will be the solution.”
The bill essentially rewrites the language excluding the type of arcade games found on the Boardwalk from the 2012, everything from coin operated games to skee-ball, and would free the arcades from the numerous regulations that exist for electronic amusement devices such as slot machines.
Students attending Worcester County Public Schools were the only kids in the state of Maryland who started school post Labor Day this past September, but Mathias hopes he can better argue the merits of a bill that would ensure that all kids in the state get a little bit more time in the summer vacations.
The bill found little traction last session, but Mathias is hopeful Senate Bill 767 will have better luck the second time around.
“It makes all the sense in the world to pass a bill like this,” said Mathias. “Families get more time in the summer months to spend together, and it will drastically help the tourism industry here on the shore and all over the state. So it’s an economic bill and a bill that helps families.”
Mathias’ bill has been co-sponsored by Senator Jim Rosapepe (D-District 21-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties), and he’s been working with Gov. Larry Hogan’s office to move the bill forward and trying to find compromise with various school superintendents who oppose the bill.
In addition, Mathias said he is considering a “jobs program” part of the bill that he hopes will garner even more support as well.
“We hope that we can take that added money that people in the tourism industry will make with this change and start a jobs program that will reinvest those added dollars and turn them into good jobs for people in the hotel and restaurant industries across our state,” said Mathias.