I am at Chesapeake Pride, about 11 miles south of Maryland’s capitol city, Annapolis, in southern Anne Arundel County, in a ruralish suburb called Edgewater at a small state park on the Chesapeake Bay called Mayo Beach. It’s a beautiful sunny day and the water and sky are beautiful and it’s 91 Farenheit. This rural gay Pride summer festival has grown to attract 700 people last year and was expected to grow to 1,000 this week. (www.chesapeakepridefestival.org).
But the State of Maryland denied them a license to sell beer.
I am working a booth and it’s sunny and hot and beautiful and I am looking at gorgeous water.
I really want a beer.
It looks like fewer people are showing up than last time.
The festival organizers, busy Annapolis area businesswomen, admit they were late in applying for the license. But other people have been late to do so as well. There is an “appeals” process where people who are late can ask the County license commission to grant them a license for special events even if they did not apply within the government mandated time period. The bureaucrats voted to turn them down, 2-1. Anecdotally I am told they do not routinely deny this appeal to other groups. Wonder what was different about this group? Board of License Commissioners Melvin Hyatt voted to issue the license, which was issued last year; Commissioners John G. Warner and James Thomas voted to deny it.
It’s funny, the political groups here include two Democrat groups, one Green Party, and two different libertarian tables (a Libertarian Party table and a generic gay lower-case “l” libertarian table where I am pushing, among other things, this blog.) I will say once again the gay community has been held hostage to the regulatory state favored by the gay leftovers of the Democratic Party. (See the post below on how many years it took to create the popular gay restaurant DuplexDiner in gay-friendly DC.)
I joked with one of the women organizing the event that I have a bottle of red wine in my car and I am going to get it and serve it under the table, since I am a libertarian and don’t believe in licenses. She hesitates and tells me that maybe she is going to become one today too.
Big Homo 