Northbound Laurel Avenue in Takoma Park will be closed beginning today (June 12) to allow for outdoor seating, dining, sales and customer pick-ups, according to a city announcement. Traffic will be rerouted around the Seventh Day Adventist church, while southbound Laurel Avenue will remain open to vehicles.
Willow Street Yoga is closing its downtown Silver Spring studio on the second level of 8561 Fenton St., according to an announcement on the company’s Facebook page. In a email to clients on June 3, signed “Joe Miller and the Willow Street team,” the company wrote, “Our biggest challenge in maintaining the studio has always been our high rent obligations.”
The Montgomery County Department of Police and the state police yesterday announced policies and procedures the departments would follow while enforcing Gov. Larry Hogan’s Monday stay-at-home order. Neither department’s officers will make random stops to ask whether drivers are in compliance with the order to undertake only essential travel.
The City of Takoma Park is accepting applications for emergency grants to local small businesses affected by the COVID-19 emergency. The Citywide Small Business Mini-Grant Program has been established to provide grants of up to $3,000.
Two Takoma Park residents have launched a new nonprofit theater group and announced the inaugural production of the company. Co-directors Steve Quintilian and Julie Lloyd started Encore Theater Company and will produce “Next to Normal,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning musical as the group’s premier production.
Activists scored a victory earlier this month when the Montgomery County Council discussed an amendment to a proposed community policing bill that would, among other things, remove language calling for an expansion of the county’s school resource officer program.
A group of local residents has opened Fullfillery, a store in Takoma Park catering to those who are interested in the concept of sustainable shopping. “We each had an idea that we wanted bulk sustainable shopping available,” said Lauren Chitwood Schauf, a Woodside Forest resident who manages the store. “It’s popping up in England, it’s popping up in New York, it’s popping up in California, but it was very conspicuously absent from D.C.”
The Takoma Park City Council has adopted a long-term housing and economic development strategic plan, city officials announced. The 2019-2030 Housing and Economic Development Strategic Plan is designed to be a “coordinated approach needed to move Takoma Park towards a ‘Livable Community for All’ for this and future generations,” according to the introduction.
A bill to formalize community policing guidelines for the county’s police department was introduced this week by Council President Nancy Navarro (D-District 4) and Councilmember Craig Rice (D-District 2). Bill 33-19, Police – Community Policing would address “core community policing values,” diversity on the force, engagements with the community, complaints against county officers and other issues.