Business

As more states make the move to legalize marijuana, a growing number of businesses are eliminating or drastically changing their drug testing policies. “The majority still have their drug-free workplace policies in place,” said Amber Clayton, senior director of Knowledge Center Operations at the Society of Human Resources Management.

Last year, Sarah Clark and her dad bought tickets to see Disney’s “Strange World” at Warehouse Cinemas Frederick. They were promised that the showing would include open captions — which provide a descriptive transcript of the audio of a movie, and are burned into the video itself, meaning they can’t be turned off like closed captions can be.

Baltimore Center Stage is celebrating the launch of single ticket sales for their 2023/2024 season with an exclusive offer beginning Aug. 1. For a limited time only, theater audience members can purchase single tickets at 50% off the retail price for five of BCS’s productions this season. This “early bird deep discount” is available from Aug. 1-4, or until 500 tickets have been sold.

Special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, may have fallen out of favor in the past year as a corporate vehicle to acquire and take companies public — but a Gaithersburg group is forging ahead despite those odds. Blank-check company 99 Acquisition Group Inc., was formed and led by Hiren Patel as chairman and CEO, who’s also CEO of D.C.-area e-commerce, real estate and contracting firm Intelvative.

T. Rowe Price Group, the investment firm headquartered in Baltimore, is cutting 2% of its workforce, a spokesperson confirmed Thursday. The spokesperson did not did not say whether any Baltimore-area employees are affected. In addition to its headquarters at 100 E. Pratt Street in downtown Baltimore, T. Rowe Price also has a corporate campus in Owings Mills.

Flights to several destinations from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport are spiking despite the airport serving fewer customers and offering fewer flights this month than in July 2019. BWI Airport scheduled 12.8% fewer flights in July 2023 than July 2019, but available seats only dropped 2.2%, according to statistics from data aviation company Cirium Inc.

A 115-room hotel is opening next month near the Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, nearly four years after plans were revealed and a $26 million capital investment. The Study at Johns Hopkins located at 3215 N. Charles St. will open sometime next month after it received approval for a liquor license Thursday, said Paul McGowan, the owner of Study Hotels.

EagleBank is known around the D.C. region as being an active lender to owners and developers of commercial buildings, but lately the Bethesda bank has been shying away from financing one particular type of property: offices. Office vacancy levels have crept up since the pandemic hit in 2020 and changed the way many of us work, and all of that empty space has depressed property values — bad news for landlords and the banks that lend to them.