‘Overenforcement’: Black Baltimore restaurant owners say they’re harassed and subject to spurious 311 complaints

With challenges ranging from the uncertainty of what the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic means for their business to worker shortages, some of Baltimore’s Black-owned restaurants say they also deal with harassing behavior and spurious complaints rooted in racism. That can be manifested in repeated calls to the city’s nonemergency line, 311, about their businesses, actions they say affect them financially and emotionally. In a city that is 57% Black, numerous Black restaurant owners say some people try to shut them down.