Hutzell: In Annapolis, you can’t eat a hot dog standing up

I had a hot dog in Annapolis the other day. By law, I had to eat it sitting down.

Annapolis is a city of rules, layered thickly over hundreds of years in Maryland’s small-town state capital.

None might be quite so silly as this.

If I were to eat my hot dog standing up at Forward Brewing, or any outdoor cafe in the city, the owners could be fined $250.

If it happens a second time within 12 months — every dog has its day — the restaurant could lose its permit for outdoor dining.

Mayor Jared Littmann campaigned on making government more effective. This seems like a good place to get busy.

“You try to solve every possible problem and prevent every possible concern,” said Alderman Harry Huntley, who represents downtown. “And you stack so many rules on top of things — even well-meaning ones, and even ones that individually are perfectly reasonable — that you get to a point where the overwhelming weight is impossible to bear.”

Huntley was one of four City Council members who tried in April to clean up sweeping legislation governing outdoor dining passed last year.

For something so popular, so tied to the image of Annapolis, grabbing a bite to eat or drink outside is surprisingly contentious.

People have always eaten outside in Annapolis. Modern life has embraced dining alfresco since the advent of crab decks in the 1940s.

Over the past 22 years, the council adopted rules on rooftop dining — no throwing sushi, please. It set standards for chairs and tables in the Historic District — they must fit with the “rhythm” of the architecture.

The 2020 pandemic set the table for a big expansion.

Restaurants needed space to meet social distancing rules, and the city responded by first easing regulations that blocked the use of street parking and private lots for table space and then creating new rules that allowed it.

A lot of life in Annapolis circles back to parking, and if you take a space away, a complaint is born.

“At one City Council meeting, you have people saying we need more outdoor dining downtown,” said Alderman Frank Thorp, who represents Eastport. “At the next City Council meeting, you have people saying we need more parking downtown — both very legitimate issues.”

With the pandemic in the rearview, pressure started to build to set rules for all those outdoor dining spots in his ward and Huntley’s.

Reforms passed in April 2025. The result was a mishmash of unintended consequences.

A maritime deli — next to the water — can’t have ketchup on the table. Condiments aren’t allowed unless a customer asks.

Setting tables and chairs on the sidewalk is allowed year-round. Lease a parking space next to that sidewalk for more tables, though, and the dining season is only nine months.

In April, the season opened for the first time under the new rules. Businesses that tried to open in converted parking spaces they’d used for years discovered they needed permit applications that weren’t available until May.

Outdoor dining is allowed until 10 p.m. on Main Street, but around the corner on Dock Street, restaurants can stay open until 11.

The city is renegotiating a lease with five restaurants for dining on half of Market Space, an area with 19 parking spaces on an access road behind the Market House. Owners fear they’re being pushed out; the city says it’s just streamlining.

Cam and Claire Bowdren might have struggled with this more than anyone else.

Six years ago, they opened Forward Brewing in Eastport. It’s a brewery and tasting room in their family’s old marine electronics shop. It’s so small, city officials doubted it would work.

During COVID, the Bowdrens converted their eight-spot parking lot into a beer garden — discovering an unexpected market.

Some neighbors wanted to clip the popular business’s wings, unhappy about increased competition for street parking. So the new rules required businesses to get special zoning approval to convert parking lots in some parts of town, but not in others.

“It’s a very emotional topic, primarily because of the traffic and the number of people in Eastport,“ Thorp said.

The Bowdrens asked for 89 seats. City planners recommended 45. Negotiation resulted in 77 — on the condition that the owners figure out an emergency exit. They’re formalizing it.

It’s unlikely that an inspector will show up and cite the Bowdrens if people stand while eating or drinking. But the threat remains.

To be safe, Cam stenciled a warning about the law on the outdoor tables.

“I think there were some unintended consequences in that language, which we’re hoping the city can resolve,” he said.

In March, Huntley and three other council members introduced a bill to simplify definitions and remove the requirement to be seated.

It ran into Thorp. He opposed it, saying it was rushed and drafted without his input. The others withdrew the bill.

“The debate was brought forward because of the issue at Forward, but it does, in fact, affect the whole city,” Thorp said.

He’s asked zoning officials to write new legislation and wants it in place by next spring. Relying on the office that enforces the rules gives others pause.

“We’ve come up with this problem of, ‘Oh, somebody’s a deli and somebody’s a restaurant, we need to put into code what the difference is,’” Huntley said. “Then 50 years later, you get this ridiculous thing of somebody’s not allowed to have ketchup on their tables.”

As I munched my dog at Forward Brewing, I thought about standing in protest of silly rules. But the Blue Angels were flying overhead and the beer was cold.

That’s Annapolis.

It’s a pleasant place to sit outside and think. Just don’t stand up.