Parking Lot

A Laurel woman was assaulted and robbed on the parking lot of a restaurant in Owen Brown village early yesterday as she was getting into her car, Howard County police said.The woman, Angela Affeldt, told police that a man came up behind her about 1: 45 a.m. in the parking lot of Margarita Maggies in the 6400 block of Dobbin Center Way and punched her in the face.Police said Affeldt was knocked unconscious by the blow. When she regained consciousness, her cellular phone, radar detector, pager and $75 in cash were missing from her 1996 Honda Civic.

After four years of planning and debate, construction could begin next month on an 82-space parking lot in Oella that would be used primarily by shoppers in nearby historic Ellicott City.Situated on the Baltimore County side of the Patapsco River, the parking lot is a joint venture between Baltimore and Howard counties."The project is moving along," said Kenneth Mills, executive director of the Baltimore County Revenue Authority, which would manage the lot. Howard County has agreed to finance the $325,000 project.

A group of Ellicott City merchants in the historic district have won a temporary stay against the repaving of a parking lot. The work, they say, has chased away potential customers and driven down sales by as much as 85 percent."

:TC The former site of the McCormick spice plant, razed three years ago to make way for a redevelopment project, would remain a parking lot for up to four more years if the City Council passes legislation introduced last month.Baltimore's planning commission voted 4-1 yesterday to approve bill that would enable Rouse-Teachers Properties Inc., the Rouse Co. affiliate that bought and razed the Inner Harbor spice plant, to continue operating a 240-space parking lot where the McCormick building once stood.

Once each year for 10 years, Barbara Craig-Gress and her husband have left their car in the parking lot of the Middlesex Shopping Center in Essex and boarded the bus for a weekend ski trip in Pennsylvania.When they returned this year, their gray Plymouth Voyager minivan was gone. Mrs. Craig-Gress was in a panic.Assuming the minivan had been stolen, she called 911. The police told her that it had not been stolen, however. It had been towed.The reason? A "for sale" sign in the minivan window.

Three teen-agers were arrested and charged by state police with stealing property valued at more than $1,200 from five vehicles in an Eldersburg industrial park early Friday.Tfc. Craig Williams of the Westminster barracks said he was on routine patrol about 12:25 a.m. Friday when he saw a black Ford Escort being driven out of the Carroll Insulation parking lot without headlights burning. It was driven to nearby Patton Construction Co. on Venture Way, he said.When the trooper stopped the vehicle, he saw a stereo system partially hidden under the front passenger seat.

When attorney Fred Howard Silverstein has a case in Howard District Court, he tries to arrive about 45 minutes early -- not to consult with clients or witnesses, but so he can find a parking space."

City police were searching yesterday for the killer of a 51-year-old man who was shot Thursday night in the parking lot of a Giant Food store on Reisterstown Road in Northwest Baltimore.Cecil Eugene Harris of the 4100 block of Boarman Ave. was shot several times by someone standing on the opposite side of the parking lot fence, said Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a police spokeswoman.Cook-Hayes said Harris was repairing his car on the southeast side of the parking lot, in the 5900 block of Reisterstown Road, when he was shot from about six feet away about 11 p.m. He was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital at 11: 55 p.m.The police spokeswoman said detectives know of no suspects or motive.

The small parking lot just off U.S. 40 in Ellicott City sits on the legal equivalent of a fault line - and after years of relative dormancy, its precarious location is threatening to destroy the lot. Part of the property paved over for the parking lot off North Chatham Road is zoned commercial and part is zoned residential, according to county officials. They say the land also lies in a stream buffer. Department of Planning and Zoning officials are taking the owner of the lot to District Court to get it removed, five years after issuing him a written warning.

Parking problems in the historic district of Ellicott City could be alleviated before the end of the year, when a new 82-space parking lot is expected to open just across the Patapsco River bridge.Construction on the parking lot, a joint venture between Howard and Baltimore counties, is scheduled to begin this fall.The project was moved ahead after Howard County earlier this month won a $213,000 transportation award for the construction, which also includes building sidewalks in the neighborhood of Oella and upgrading the bridge, from the state Transportation Department's Enhancement Program.