After more than an hour of tense discussion, the Montgomery County Council voted 10-1 Tuesday to restrict late-night business hours for hookah lounges and tobacco and vape shops, requiring them to close at 2 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends.
Council Vice President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4) introduced the bill in February as part of the county’s approach to addressing crime specifically in downtown Silver Spring, where there are 13 hookah lounges, according to county data. Councilmembers Gabe Albornoz (D-At-large) and Evan Glass (D-At-large) were also lead sponsors.
A heat map provided by the Montgomery County police department indicated high rates of calls for service between the hours of 2 and 7 a.m. in downtown Silver Spring specifically in areas where hookah lounges are located from January 2022 to January 2024.
Stewart said the bill is intended to align the late-night business hours of establishments that serve and sell tobacco and hookah with establishments that serve and sell alcohol. Under current county law, businesses that serve or sell alcohol must close by 2 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends, but there is no restriction on the hours of businesses that serve or sell tobacco.
“Our goal here is to bring parity for our late-night businesses,” Stewart said Tuesday.
However, councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-large) voiced concern that the legislation would disproportionately impact minority-owned businesses. He was the sole councilmember to vote against the legislation.
“This bill will put small businesses, mostly if not all, Black and immigrant [owned], out of business. And I don’t think that’s something that governments should do to determine the winners and losers,” Jawando said.
At a public hearing in March, residents of downtown Silver Spring voiced support for the bill, saying that they hoped would lead to a decrease in crime. Hookah lounge owners argued at the hearing that the bill discriminated against minority business owners.
Glass said between 2022 and 2023 there was a 53% increase in calls regarding disorderly conduct between the hours of 2 and 3 a.m. in the downtown Silver Spring area.
“This is a strain on the residents who live down there, it is a strain on the businesses and most importantly it’s a strain on our public safety officials who could be doing other things in other areas,” Glass said.
The bill builds off a law passed in May 2023 requiring county businesses open between 2 and 5 a.m. that sell alcohol or tobacco to develop late-night safety plans. That bill was a response to a rise in late-night crime in downtown Silver Spring and other areas throughout the county. According to a memorandum from County Executive Marc Elrich (D), many businesses have worked collaboratively with county police to enact safety measures, but others have been less cooperative. The 2023 law was enacted to ensure a uniform process for all late-night businesses.
Other jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C., have passed similar laws dictating that the business hours of tobacco establishments align with the business hours of alcohol establishments. Some counties, including Prince George’s and Baltimore, have been more restrictive, requiring these businesses to close as early as 8 p.m.
“As nothing else in the region is open that late, Silver Spring has become the after-party spot, and this is having negative impacts on our residents or other businesses and increasing the cost of public safety,” Stewart said.
Earl Stoddard, director of the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security, said the county’s emergency responders aren’t equipped to handle the level of calls for service in the early morning hours when the hookah bars are the only county businesses open. Stoddard said the volume of calls at that time in downtown Silver Spring has tied up resources and has made it difficult for officers to respond to calls in other parts of the county.
“I would concede that it’s pretty clear that there’ll be a negative impact on 13 businesses that would be closed earlier,” Stoddard said. “But we don’t know what the impact is of the public safety issues that are created during those hours on the other businesses [that open] immediately preceding them.”
Stoddard said he has ridden with police officers to respond to calls at hookah lounges and sometimes they are so packed it takes officers up to 20 minutes to get inside and address the issue, which have included fights. He also said the lounges will sometimes stay open until 6 or 7 a.m. if there is enough business.
Jawando said his concern is that the hookah lounges will be forced to close their businesses if they cannot stay open in those early hours.
“The hookah lounges are not the problem. … the problems are when large numbers of people exit onto the street,” Jawando said. “This bill would have a negative impact on both businesses and the employees.”
Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles (D-At-large) voiced similar concerns.
“There is no parity with these businesses. They cannot sell alcohol, they cannot sell food. So there is no parity when we’re taking away the hours when they can actually sell the stuff that they have been open to sell to their consumers,” Sayles said.
Jawando introduced an amendment to the bill that would have extended hookah lounge hours one day a week, but it failed.
Councilmember Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3) argued that consumers could frequent hookah lounges at other hours.
“If someone wants to use a hookah bar, they don’t have to wait till three o’clock in the morning to do it,” Katz said. “They can go in that bar when it’s open and use those services at that time.”
Stewart and Elrich will host a press conference at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday at the Silver Spring Civic Building to address efforts to curb crime and improve public safety.