SALISBURY, Md.- Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed 172 bills into law on Tuesday in Annapolis. One of the bills allows Wicomico County to apply for its own liquor license. With that hurdle out of the way, it is only a matter of months before county leaders want to start serving alcohol at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center on Glen Avenue in Salisbury.
Currently inside the civic center, you'll find the conventional hotdogs, hamburgers, and soda. But in a few months, beer and wine will be added to that menu and some believe it will provide a big benefit to the civic center and county.
"I think it's a great idea. It's long overdue," said Barbara Furbush of Salisbury. "It will be advantageous to a lot of events."
Furbush said the annual Poodle Club of America National Specialty is not one of the events that should have alcohol and believes an event-by-event basis is how things should work at the civic center.
"This dog show right now has children here and we certainly would not want to serve alcohol all day," Furbush said. "However, tomorrow night we have a banquet and everybody has to BYOB. And it would be nice to have the civic center here where we could buy our liquor right here."
Other at the civic center on Wednesday felt similarly.
"If it was a rock band with younger children here, then absolutely not. But if they're going to get some sporting events here, they may need to do that," said Nancy Moran of Laurel, Del.
Sporting events are one of the big factors behind the alcohol decision. Wicomico County Executive Bob Culver said he wants to explore bringing a minor league hockey team to the civic center, which would certainly require the sale of beer for the fans.
Culver said recently he had the county attorney pull the land records to the property and they revealed the county could have been selling alcohol at the civic center for the past 45 years. In a recent interview, Culver said he hopes to start alcohol sales this fall, once renovations at the civic center are complete this summer.
