As Shelley Halstead gazes upon the vacant, disheveled building that once hosted a stop in the “Green Book,” all she sees is potential. “They just want to keep scraping houses and buildings. And I just, I’m a carpenter. Like first and foremost, I’m like, ‘No, let’s rebuild it,’” Halstead said. “I live here. I want to see this thing happen.” Standing last month on a deserted street and bundled up against the cold, Halstead, 53, painted the picture of how she plans to transform 1415 Etting St. from an abandoned eyesore into a community gathering place for the residents of historic Marble Hill, situated in West Baltimore’s Upton neighborhood. The building was once a stop in the “Green Book,” a travel guide featuring businesses that would host Black customers during segregation. In Jim Crow-era America, Black customers risked not just refusal of service, but violence if they tried to patronize certain businesses.

The surge of new businesses that started with the Covid-19 pandemic may have lost a little steam from its peak in 2022, but entrepreneurs continue to launch new businesses at numbers not seen prior to 2020. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows more than 5 million new businesses were formed in 2022. That’s down from 5.3 million in 2021, but far more than the 4.3 million in 2020 or at any point since the agency began tracking the metric in 2004. Despite the decline compared to 2021, business formations in 2022 were up 44% from their pre-pandemic level. The continued surge in new business applications comes even as many current business owners are worried about the chances of a possible recession.

The oldest continuously operating African American community theater in the country has received $5.2 million in state and federal funding to upgrade its aging building. Arena Players Inc., located at 801 McCulloh St. in Baltimore, will use the funds to upgrade its building, which the theater has used since 1962 and bought in 1969, according to its website. U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin along with Congressman Kweisi Mfume helped secure the $4 million in federal funding as part of the recent omnibus funding legislation. The theater was also allocated $1.2 million for the project through the state’s fiscal year 2023 capital budget last year.

A third-generation Baltimore company changed hands last month in a deal spurred in part by decades-long friendships in the tight-knit beverage distribution industry. Bond Distributing Co., which was founded in 1950, sold at the end of the year to the Honickman, Origlio and Bergson Organization (HOBO), which is made up of the three eponymous families and focuses on beer distribution primarily in the northeast. The acquisition marks HOBO’s entrance into Maryland, where Bond distributes beer, wine and liquor to 3,000 retail customers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc. brokered the deal and Venable LLP provided legal counsel to Bond.

Stephen L. Snyder has his law license back. The federally indicted medical malpractice lawyer has been reinstated to the Maryland bar as of late Friday, when the state Supreme Court agreed to lift the suspension Snyder first consented to in October 2020. Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader wrote that a majority of the justices agreed there was no basis to continue Snyder’s suspension. “I’m emotionally thrilled to have been reinstated to the practice of law,” Snyder told The Daily Record. “I have always treasured my license and can’t wait to get started again.”

Citing a judge’s ruling that Annapolis does not have enough police officers for its population, the Annapolis Police Department and the city’s Office of Law say they will no longer sign off on major construction projects in Maryland’s capital. The policy change has indefinitely stalled all in-process major construction projects that had not yet received what’s called an adequate public facilities certificate. Since 2005, those certificates have been required to affirm that Annapolis has sufficient public services to support the new construction, including sewer systems, stormwater management facilities and police officers. The city’s adequate public facilities ordinance mandates that a minimum of 3.2 police officers be employed for every 1,000 residents.

Gov. Wes Moore leaned back on the couch in his sparse office — undecorated, so far, aside from a portrait of Frederick Douglass — in the State House and said with a smile that the $63 billion budget he’d just proposed should be anything but surprising. The Democratic governor campaigned on his support of transportation investments, such as the Baltimore east-west light rail route called the Red Line, and education initiatives, like the decadelong program to invest in public schools, called the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Each — the Blueprint specifically and transportation projects generally — would get $500 million boosts in the budget plan he announced Friday.

As Maryland’s official state dessert, Smith Island Cake is a standout dish on any chef’s table. Now, the famed cake is set to receive a new sign marker in recognition of its historical significance. Smith Island United was recently awarded a grant from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, whose mission is supporting and celebrating the preservation of community history. The Pomeroy Foundation, through the Hungry for History Program, is funding a new sign marker for the Smith Island Cake. As Maryland’s official state dessert, Smith Island Cake is a standout dish on any chef’s table. Now, the famed cake is set to receive a new sign marker in recognition of its historical significance.