Category: Baltimore News

City grocers urged Baltimore officials to repeal the two-cent bottle tax last week, saying the charge drive cash-strapped shoppers to county businesses. At a press conference Dec. 2, retailers said city stores had seen a 4-7 percent decrease in sales since the tax was enacted last July. Sandy Vary, co-owner of Bel-Garden Bi-Rite Supermarket in […]

Congregants of a local church held a protest for the second time Dec. 6, for what they call their landlord’s deliberate violation of state law. Pastor Mario Ogans and others from God’s Kingdom Builders Church of Jesus Christ on Bel Air Road are outraged because their landlord authorized a liquor shop to open in a […]

A charter amendment to create a city account designated for the restoration of deteriorating schools cleared the City Council Dec.6. The non-lapsing account redirects city council funds to renovation projects for existing schools as well as the construction of new facilities. Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and Councilman James Kraft, D-1, introduced the legislation […]

When Hattie Peartree of Pikesville received a call from the law office of Mark H. Klein last July, she thought she had found relief for her high mortgage payments. The representative told Peartree he would reduce her home loan if she paid $3,000. “I told the person I didn’t have it,” she said. “And he […]

In the wake of recent backlash against Four Loko and other caffeinated alcoholic drinks, Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, D-7, is demanding action from the Baltimore City Liquor Board. She plans to introduce a resolution at a Dec. 6 City Council meeting that would require the Liquor Board to report regulatory efforts to seize the drinks from […]

The beginning of the holiday season has been filled with sadness for the family of 16-year-old Delvonte Tisdale, a teen with Baltimore roots whose mutilated body was discovered in an affluent suburb of Boston earlier this month. But exactly how he was killed remains a mystery. Police said Tisdale’s body, which could only be identified […]

Police are investigating an attack on a 15-year-old African-American youth by a group of men associated with a Jewish community patrol group, which occurred on Nov. 19 in the Upper Park Heights Community of Baltimore. According to a police report, the incident occurred at approximately noon when the boy was traveling on Falstaff Road. After […]

The Baltimore Branch of the NAACP has a new face, city housing official Tessa Hill-Aston. The Northwest Baltimore native was elected president Nov. 16, defeating longtime former head, G.I. Johnson, by 142 votes. While this was her first presidential run, she has served on the NAACP executive board for 15 years, most recently as second […]

After a month of town hall meetings, routine school visits and contract modifications, members of the Baltimore City Teachers Union voted in favor of what the city schools’ system calls a landmark contract negotiation. “Teachers are at the very heart of everything we as a school district do, and unlike any other agreement until now—here […]

In a nearly unanimous vote Nov. 22, the Baltimore City Council approved an 11-acre development project that will bring Wal-Mart and Lowe’s to North Baltimore. The 25th Street Station project, which will be constructed on the site of Anderson Automotive on West 25th and Howard Streets, passed the council in a 14-1 vote. Councilman Carl […]