Thursday, October 31, 2024
Assault at Rockville convenience store
Rockville City police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault at a convenience store Tuesday night, October 29, 2024. The assault was reported at a store in the 200 block of Park Road, near the Rockville Metro station at 10:45 PM. An individual was accused of shoplifting in the same incident. The business has not yet been identified by police, but Metro Coffee Convenience is located on that block.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Peter Mason opening November 1 at Montgomery Mall (Photos)
Get ready to dress for success this holiday season at Peter Mason by Montgomery Custom Tailors. The menswear store will open at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda this Friday, November 1, 2024. Peter Mason offers men's suits made with superfine wool fabrics from Italy and England. Custom-tailored suits, ready-to-wear, and dress shirts are available. Look for Peter Mason on Level 1 in the Old Navy wing of the mall, across from The Cheesecake Factory.
Pedestrian stabbed from behind in Rockville
UPDATE - 6:18 PM: Rockville City police have arrested Muhammad Ibrahim Adam, 28, of Rockville. Adam has been charged with attempted 2nd-degree murder, 1st-degree assault and reckless endangerment.
Rockville City police are looking for a suspect who stabbed a pedestrian from behind "without provocation" on October 13, 2024. The male victim was walking in the 1500 block of Rockville Pike at 5:25 PM, police say, when he was suddenly stabbed in the rear side of his neck for no apparent reason.
Police describe the suspect as a Black male of unspecified age, with a thin build. He was wearing a black coat and grey pants. If you have any information about this incident, or can identify the suspect, call police at 240-314-8900.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Walgreens space on Veirs Mill Road available for lease, as chain closes 1200 stores
Walgreens appears to be on the way out at 12222 Veirs Mill Road at the Randolph Crossing shopping center. Its 12000-square-foot end space is being marketed as available for lease by the property owner. This was formerly a Rite Aid store, but was converted to Walgreens when that chain acquired its struggling competitor. Now Walgreens is struggling, and announced earlier this month that it would be closing 1,200 of its stores across America.
Wild Coffee Bean opening in Rockville
A new coffee destination is percolating on Rockville Pike. Wild Coffee Bean is coming soon to 1532 Rockville Pike. That's in the same shopping center as Party City and Advanced Health Center. The space, located at the front corner of the center, was most recently home to UBREAKIFIX.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Police respond to assault at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda
Montgomery County police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda on the evening of October 24, 2024. The assault was reported at the mall at 7:22 PM. Two police cruisers pulled up to Entrance 5 by The Cheesecake Factory in response to the incident.
This was the tenth assault reported at the mall this year, which has already doubled the five assaults reported in all of 2023 at the popular retail center. The last assault took place on August 8. Montgomery County police opened a "resource room" at the mall in 2022, in an attempt to address elevated crime at the property - part of a general crime wave that has persisted countywide since 2020, after the County Council defunded the police - after 12 assaults were reported there that year. The police department is down 194 officers since 2020, and 179 police officer positions are now vacant, according to a County Council staff memo released earlier this year.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Shots fired at Rockville park in broad daylight
Rockville City police responded to a report of shots fired at a park in broad daylight early yesterday afternoon, October 26, 2024. At 12:33 PM Saturday, a 911 call reported gunfire at Welsh Park at 101 Welsh Park Drive. When officers arrived at the scene to investigate, they found evidence of multiple rounds having been discharged in the parking lot of the park. No injuries were reported.
Detectives are continuing to investigate the incident. Police are now looking for a black Honda Civic, of unspecified model year, that was seen fleeing the scene after the shots were fired. Anyone with any information or video of the incident is asked to contact RCPD detectives at Detectives@RockvilleMD.Gov. Tipsters may remain anonymous.
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Sneak peek: Teso Life Japanese Super Store in Rockville
Construction is well-advanced inside Teso Life Japanese Super Store at 1701 Rockville Pike at the Shops at Congressional Village. About half of the interior has wall decoration. Merchandise is being placed on the shelves. They are now hiring sales associates, cashiers, and merchandise stackers. Interestingly, for a Japanese Super Store, the help wanted notice states that bilingual fluency in English and Mandarin is preferred.
Friday, October 25, 2024
PayMore opening soon in Rockville
PayMore will open its first Montgomery County location soon in Rockville. The cash-for-electronics store will be located at 800 Rockville Pike at the Golden Arcade shopping center. PayMore may sound like a Montgomery County or State of Maryland tax office, but it's actually a retail business that buys your old electronics - even if they are damaged - for cash, and will professionally wipe your data from the device to protect your security.
PayMore entered the Maryland market last year, with its first store in Ellicott City. The Long Island, New York chain has been expansion plans for 75 new locations nationwide, including this one in Rockville. It will be located next to Cyprus Air.
Ba Le bánh mì sandwich shop opening in Rockville
Ba Le, a bánh mì sandwich shop, is coming soon to Rockville. It will be located at 765-FG Rockville Pike, at the Ritchie Center. You'll often see an Eiffel Tower or other French imagery in the branding of bánh mì restaurants, which emphasizes that the world-famous sandwiches start with a French baguette sliced lengthwise, and filled with ingredients of your choice. Ba Le will replace another Vietnamese restaurant, Ốc & Crab Seafood Restaurant, which vacated this space almost one year ago.
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Toy store closes at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda
The closing sale has ended at Alex Baby & Toys at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda. It has now permanently closed. Surprisingly, they depart about a month ahead of the peak holiday toy shopping season. There is once again a toy store vacuum to be filled at Montgomery Mall, although Toys R Us will be bringing its pop-up shop back to Macy's again this year.
Police called after assault at Rockville supermarket
Rockville City police were called to a grocery store in the Twinbrook area early Monday evening, October 21, 2024, after an individual was allegedly assaulted there. A 2nd-degree assault was reported at a supermarket in the 1900 block of Veirs Mill Road at 6:36 PM. An individual was also accused of theft in the same incident. The business in question was not identified by name, but Lotte Plaza Market is located on that block.
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Skincare treatment business opening at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda
A high-end skincare treatment business is opening at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda. It will not only carry creams and serums, but also skincare medical devices. Product lines include +VouPre, Zero Gravity Skin, and Avologi Scientific. The +VouPre Themal Collection in the front window retails for $5000, according to the company's website, and many Zero Gravity Skin devices also retail in the thousands. Nova's Space Touch LED light therapy mask, as seen below, has a retail price of $26,000. When it opens, look for it on Level 1 of the mall next to Everything But Water.
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Montgomery County willing to mortgage Upcounty's future to nix M-83 Highway
More than half a decade ago, the Montgomery County Council again nixed plans to build the M-83 Midcounty Highway Extended that has long been in the County's master plan. The highway was one of two major infrastructure projects that were essential to the major growth proposed for the Upcounty area, and Clarksburg in particular. When Clarksburg was allowed to grow more than 800% in population earlier this century, its new residents were promised the M-83 Highway, and a Corridor Cities Transitway light rail system that would connect the proposed new growth centers between Rockville and Clarksburg to the Shady Grove Metro station. In the end, however, all of the growth was allowed to occur, and developers reaped their massive profits - but the promised highway and light rail were never built. That display of naked greed by our developer-controlled County Council wasn't enough - now the Council and Planning Board want to remove the M-83 from the master plan altogether, so it can never be built.
Such a move would be a dereliction of duty by the public officials charged with ensuring adequate infrastructure to maintain a functioning transportation system. Montgomery County doesn't have that even today. Imagine what traffic will be like in another decade with leaders who continue to block completion of our master plan highway system.
As a quick review of the correspondence received by the Planning Board ahead of two public meetings and a November public hearing on changes to the master plan reveals, it isn't residents who are asking for the M-83 to be removed from the plan. In fact, the only letter from an actual Upcounty resident on the question is asking the Planning Board to keep the M-83 in the plan. Those who are asking to have the highway removed are the same handful of tiny groups who have tried to block construction of the highway at every turn. M-83 wasn't even up for discussion, until these groups met privately with Montgomery County Planning Department officials earlier this year.
Our anti-highway, war-on-cars Planning Board is all too eager to indulge this ultra-minority request. Shockingly, so is the "leadership" of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. The same MCDOT that once determined that Alternative 9a - the master plan alignment of M-83 - should be constructed, until the Council politically interfered with the department, overruling sound traffic engineering practices with radical ideology.
Montgomery County officials continue to rule against the wishes of their own Upcounty constituents. You know, the folks who pay their salaries, and keep the lights on at the County Council and Planning Department.
You would think the Planning Department and County Council would at least feel a stinging sense of shame at their disastrous record on growth in the Upcounty.
Think again.
Longtime residents will well remember the talking points planners and Councilmembers alike sold us as they rammed through sector plans for new growth centers like "Science City," Watkins Mill, Damascus, and Clarksburg. There would be job centers right in these areas, so many new residents wouldn't have to drive down I-270 to Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia! There would be vibrant town centers in Clarksburg and Watkins Mill! There would be a library in Clarksburg! There would be an M-83 Highway between Montgomery Village Avenue and Ridge Road, which - given that we knew the vast majority of new Upcounty residents would commute by car - would divert much of the new Clarksburg, Germantown, and Damascus traffic from I-270, MD 355, and little old Brink Road onto a modern parkway that also would include a major new bicycle link! And for those who could be convinced to board a convenient rail transit alternative, there would be a Corridor Cities light rail system!
None of it ever happened. Not one bit of it.
And no politician paid the price. Even in the myriad of scandals surrounding Clarksburg alone, the Council and Planning Department let Derick Berlage be the lone fall guy. Now, after collecting twenty years' worth of fat checks from their developer sugar daddies, they want to kick Upcounty residents where it hurts one more time, really hard.
They'll probably get away with it. Again. The Council is pretty open about the fact that there simply aren't enough votes in the Upcounty to pose a risk to the holders of the At-Large Council seats in the next election year. And the individual Upcounty Council districts have been severely gerrymandered, to ensure that the residents of the various growth areas like Clarksburg, Damascus, and Germantown can't unite to knock out any one Councilmember come election time. They have repeatedly thumbed their nose at Upcounty residents, and privately call County taxpayers "suckers" and "losers."
Getting away with murder doesn't make it right, however. The Planning Department, Planning Board, and County Council will continue to augment and solidify their legacy of shame, failure, embarrassment, reckless irresponsibility, and dereliction of duty. They'll continue to let a handful of special interests, and their developer sugar daddies, block economic growth and progress at every turn.
We've seen the results of the failure to build the M-83 Highway, the new Potomac River crossing of I-370 to the Dulles area in Virginia, the Rockville Freeway, the Northwest Freeway, the North-Central Freeway, and the Northern Parkway in Montgomery County. Residents sitting in traffic. Higher shipping prices. Job creation and business growth numbers at or near the bottom in the D.C. region. And a failure to attract a single new major corporate headquarters in over a quarter century.
Heckuva job, Brownie!!
Monday, October 21, 2024
Rockville police chief resigns
Rockville City Police Chief Victor Brito has resigned. His resignation was announced by City Manager Jeff Mihelich this afternoon, but no reason for Brito's departure was given. Brito's six-year career as chief will conclude on Friday, November 22, 2024. "As the city is committed to ensuring the public’s safety, recruitment for a new police chief will begin in the near future," Mihelich said in his statement. "On behalf of the community and the Mayor and Council, I would like to thank Chief Brito for his service to protecting and serving the City of Rockville."
Sunday, October 20, 2024
Rockville police release more photos of double-stabbing suspect
Rockville City police detectives have obtained some clearer images of the suspect they are seeking in connection with the double stabbing that took place near the Twinbrook Metro station on October 13, 2024. The two male victims in the case were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Anyone who can help identify the suspect, or have any information about this incident, is asked to contact the RCPD Criminal Investigations Unit at 240-314-8900, or at Detectives@RockvilleMD.Gov.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)