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NOVEMBER 25, 2022
Holiday The offices of Ocean City Today and Bayside Gazette will be closed Friday after Thanksgiving and will reopen Monday at 8:30 a.m.
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Plastic bags headed for ban? Legislators to submit bill next session outlawing single-use plastics in MD By Mallory Panuska Staff Writer (Nov. 25, 2022) The audience at a recent Maryland Coastal Bays meeting erupted into applause when Bill Dennison, a scientist and professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies, told them that Maryland legislators would be introducing a ban on sin-
gle-use plastic when the General Assembly convenes in January. While holding up a credit card, Dennison told the audience that a study showed that humans ingest that equivalent of plastic per week, on average, from all of the particles that make it into water that humans consume either directly or indirectly from similarly affected marine species. He said his researchers found remnants of plastic in coastal bays oyster larvae. “No amount of plastic is OK,” he said while detailing how plastic ma-
terials make it into the surrounding ocean and bays. The meeting was held to present the annual report card for the five bays behind Ocean City and Assateague Island, and data from the five-year State of the Bays report, which were mediocre at best. But Dennison managed to work in some good news for the audience with the announcement about the single-use plastic ban legislation. Regionally, legislators have put similar laws on the books. See DELAWARE Page 6
Scientists estimate up to 1,000 sea turtles die each year after eating plastic bags.
Carjacking ends with five arrests Two men held on charges, juveniles return to parents
LISA CAPITELLI/OCEAN CITY TODAY
WINTERFEST BEGINS
Winterfest of Lights kicked off its 30th year of dazzling guests, with an opening ceremony last Thursday at Northside Park on 125th Street. The festival is open Wednesday through Sunday from 5:30-9:30 p.m. until Dec. 31.
(Nov. 25, 2022) A group of men and juveniles from outside the resort area were captured and charged following an armed carjacking that occurred early last Friday in downtown Ocean City. Ocean City police reported receiving a call that morning from a citizen about a possible vehicle break-in in the Wicomico Street area, but as police were on their way to investigate that call, they were sent to Dorchester Street for a reported carjacking by an assailant with a handgun. The victim, a 73-year-old man from Brandywine, Maryland told police he was standing near his car on Dorchester Street when three males approached him with one brandishing a handgun and demanding his personal belongings. It was at this point, the victim reported, that he was struck on the back See FIVE Page 20