By Sara Blumberg
Maryland Gazette
BOOMTOWN, Md. — It’s a little before midnight Friday when county police Officer Aaron Green and Lt. Steve Thomas drive into Boomtown, blue-and-red emergency lights blazing, parking their vehicles in the median of Route 175.
“Time to check in,” Green says as he gets out of the car and walks across the road into the My Place Bar & Lounge.
The bar sits among a tiny collection of old buildings that make up an area with a long, troubled history. The strip is dimly lit, but booming with people standing in the parking lots of My Place and another popular club, New Star Inn. A neighboring liquor store and a KFC have closed up for the evening; a little ways down the street, a 24-hour barber shop is busy.
At just over 6-feet-tall, bouncer Malikai Thomas sits outside the bar, dressed in jeans and a gray muscle shirt and sporting a no-nonsense expression as he checks IDs. In an instant his face changes as he sees Thomas and Green walk up to greet him.
“I thought you weren’t coming tonight,” he says as he gets off his chair and smiles. The guys hug and share a handshake.
Manager William Major is happy too, inviting Green and Thomas in to hang out.
For many, Boomtown is regarded as a dangerous place. Shootings between 2006 to 2010 that killed three people were the worst of the trouble, but the reputation has roots well before that.
In the last two years, police and others say an increase of foot patrols mixed with weekly check-ins have helped clean up this part of the Route 175 corridor, located directly across from burgeoning Fort George G. Meade.
Inside My Place, the officers relax as they talk business with Major. Many of those in the African-American crowd, women dressed in high heels and the men in neatly pressed jeans, ignore the presence of the officers, who stand out as whites in blue uniforms.
“After a while, they just blend in,” Major said.
New relationships
For Major, this type of interaction between law enforcement and Boomtown is new. As a manager, he has worked in the area for nearly a decade and witnessed a lot of violence.
He was at My Place in 2010 when a Prince George’s County man shot three people after getting into an altercation. One man died. Two years earlier, Major managed the Traffic Bar & Lounge when four people were shot in the parking lot. Two were killed and one other person was critically injured. The bar was shut down shortly after.
Another murder occurred in 2006, when a former federal police officer was shot to death in a botched robbery outside My Place.
“The trust wasn’t there, but now that has changed. We’re working together to make this place safe and viable,” Major said.
Thomas said that there was a time officer wouldn’t go into My Place or New Star Inn, for fear of retaliation.
“When you came here, you knew to bring backup,” he said, “That isn’t the case anymore.”
Of the handful of bars and lounges in Boomtown, My Place has been one of the major hot spots.
Green has been working in the police Western District for three years. He said it took a lot of effort to get business owners to trust him.
“It takes a certain type of cop to work in this district. You have to build relationships and you have to respect others before change can happen,” he said.
After the last shooting at My Place in 2010, community leaders urged the county to take away the bar’s liquor license. Instead, the liquor board imposed a $250 fine and a warning for owners Kay Jung and Sun Wilson of Severn to clean up the place.
Thomas said that since that shooting, the trouble has stopped.
“I can’t remember the last time we made an arrest there,” he said.
He added the biggest complaint he hears now are about cars towed from parking lots of neighboring businesses and the occasional disorderly drunk.
Councilman Jamie Benoit, D-Crownsville, is happy with the decline of crime in the Boomtown area, which is part of his district. But he said longterm change for the corridor is uncertain.
The surrounding area is experiencing rapid growth. Thousands of new jobs have moved to Fort Meade and the surrounding office parks in the last five years. The National Security Agency is expanding, and construction of more office space around the post continues.
Development of new homes, shops and business spaces is under way to the south in the Odenton Town Center. To the north in Hanover, the state’s largest casino has opened next to Arundel Mills mall. Several new housing developments have been completed between Boomtown and the mall in the past several years.
Over the years, community leaders and county officials have tried to clean up Boomtown. In 2008, County Executive John Leopold accompanied county code inspectors on a surprise sweep of the area. In 2006, the county adopted a series of tax credits to help the businesses spruce up the area.
So far the opening of the KFC and the widening of Route 175 through the area is the only concrete physical changes on the strip since the shootings.
“We won’t really know how the area will emerge until things like the widening of 175 and the changes at Fort Meade are finished,” he said.
New Star Inn
After saying their goodbyes at My Place, Green and Thomas head over to the New Star Inn, just 20 feet away.
As they enter, an older crowd is dancing to house music by the DJ duo Stan Greenley and Mike “Smitty” Smith.
“Come on, let me hear you shake it,” Smith says while mingling with patrons on the dance floor.
He’s a little disappointed since the dance floor isn’t packed with more people. Fridays are one of the busiest nights for the business.
Green and Thomas are once again greeted with hugs. They are even invited to “let loose” on the dance floor.
New Star, like My Place, attracts a mostly African-American crowd. Customers come from Fort Meade, Columbia and west county, Smith said.
Again both officers smile and decline as they chat with patrons at the bar. At 1 a.m., the regulars say there have been no problems so far.
Charles Henderson of Columbia says he’s been coming to Boomtown for years. He enjoys the New Star Inn for the atmosphere.
“Here’s the secret, you go to My Place for the young crowd, but you come to New Star for the older crowd. It’s two different ways of thinking,” he said.
He added that since the police started checking in regularly, the bar has changed, with more mature clientele frequenting the area.
Myong Graham, who has owned the bar since 1984, said that when something bad happens, she knows to call Green and Thomas.
“We know things will get taken care of,” she said, serving drinks with her two sisters.
Boomtown has never been on the off-limits list for service personnel stationed at Fort Meade. Base residents are not allowed to enter some nearby neighborhoods, including Meade Village and Arwell Court in Severn, because of crime, a post spokesman said.
As more people enter the bar, Green and Thomas are called to Meade Village for a possible fight. They return just after 2:30 p.m. to make sure customers are clearing out and heading home.
While standing in the parking lot, they notice a woman stranded — her car was just towed away.
“I see it every week,” Thomas said.
Green and Thomas believe they are off to a good start.
“Community policing makes a real difference, we are really seeing results,” Thomas said.
Copyright 2012 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.