Merchants

In first-round action of the new Harford County Women's InvitationalSoftball League, the Havre de Grace Merchants dropped a 10-2 decision to Hales Seafood on Thursday at Thomas Run Park. The Merchants had beat Coale Trucking, 11-9, on Tuesday.Havre de Grace is one of 12teams playing in the new league, which promises tougher competition than previous fast-pitch Harford County leagues, say organizers.The game Thursday evening was a matchup between two former championship teams. Havre de Grace has been the Harford County Women's Softball champion two of the last three years.

Song Kim, owner of Buddy's Pizza, said he didn't know the sign along Camp Meade Road or the banner on his van or another sign above his store weren't allowed by the county.Kim said business has been slow at the fast-food shop in the Shipley-Linthicum Shopping Center since he took over in April, too slow for a man with a family to support.Now the county has told him the signs and banners must be gone by Aug. 16. Other merchants along Camp Meade Road are waiting to see if they, too, get a visit from the county.

Oakland Mills Village Center is starting to look like a ghost town.In the past few weeks, at least a half-dozen merchants have moved out of the shopping center off Route 175 to make room for a 42,000-square-foot Metro Food store that is to open next fall.Today, about 30 area residents, including Columbia Association leaders, Rouse Co. officials and politicians will hold a groundbreaking ceremony to start the renovation of the aging village center.Because of the large grocery store, the space for small retailers will shrink from 33,000 square feet to 15,000 square feet.

About 200 Fells Point merchants and residents gathered in the waterfront neighborhood last night to vent their frustration at panhandlers who they said harass residents and customers and drive away business.By the end of the meeting, they had no definitive solutions, but they did decide on some action -- citizen patrols, a campaign to encourage people to refrain from giving money to panhandlers, and a committee to work with the mayor, the state's attorney and police to address the problem.

Merchants in historic Ellicott City are fighting a proposal to create a special tax district for their area that would pay for such expenses as promotions, maintenance and security.The tax is among recommendations outlined in a 46-page report by the Ellicott City Marketing Task Force. The group was formed in April by County Executive Charles I. Ecker to suggest improvements for the historic district.The report lays out a five-year plan to improve marketing and tourism, operations, growth and development in the historic district.

Twenty-four merchants threatened with eviction by a proposal to build hundreds of apartments on the west side of downtown Baltimore held a quiet rally yesterday to protest their displacement.Holding signs reading "West Side Merchants Deserve Better," the shopkeepers stood silently at Lexington Street and Park Avenue, near where workers are expected to start demolishing buildings in the spring."I've been here 24 years, and now I'm afraid I will have to close. I feel so sick about this whole thing, I don't know what to do," said Young Cho, owner of Wig House Beauty Salon at 112 W. Lexington St.As part of an effort to rebuild and rejuvenate several blocks on the struggling west side of downtown, the city's development agency is offering to buy dozens of stores and threatening to condemn and seize buildings if the owners refuse.

It's just a pig on a weather vane, but it's causing a ruckus.The farm-style merchandise that sits outside A. L. Goodie's gift shop on Main Street in the Annapolis historic district is one of many illegal sidewalk displays that has city officials upset."

In the two months since they stepped up enforcement of county sign laws, zoning officials have visited hundreds of shops and stores, ripped out truckloads of illegal signs -- and angered dozens of merchants.County zoning officials launched a crackdown on illegal signs Feb. 18, dispatching 125 county workers over a two-week stretch to serve "friendly notices" to businesses that had illegal signs near their shops.Richard M. Gauch, chief of zoning enforcement, said that 700 friendly notices were distributed by the volunteer team of road workers, filing clerks and utility crews that visited shops and stores two months ago.Illegal signs include all banners, posters, streamers, balloons, portable signs, sandwich boards and signs with flashing lights.

Surrounded by the pricey restaurants and bars of the state capital, Annapolis' historic Market House has found a modern niche among downtown workers and tourists by serving fried chicken, crab cakes, pizza and deli sandwiches. "We've become a workingman's lunch place," said Joseph Martin, 61, whose family has run Mann's Sandwiches in the nearly 150-year-old building on City Dock for 30 years. "It's a place where a guy can come eat for $3 or $4 at lunch time." But as Annapolis gears up for a major renovation of the city-owned Market House after three decades of poor maintenance, it is re-evaluating how the market works and what it sells.