The Magothy Inn looks like the kind of neighborhood dive you can find across Maryland.
Knotty pine paneling. Black leather stools lined up against a bar that runs the length of the room. Keno and lottery. Neon signs for the least trendy beers. Sports forever on TV.
And like lots of those bars, it’s crammed next to neighbors who don’t always appreciate happy hours that get too loud.
Now this little Pasadena tavern is something more — a legal landmark.
In early December, a judge decided that the Anne Arundel County liquor board made up its own rule — refusing to hold a hearing about the Magothy Inn’s license because only a handful of those who complained showed up.
“That might be the liquor board’s policy, and it might be the longstanding practice,” Circuit Judge Donna Schaeffer said during the Dec. 8 hearing, “but that doesn’t make it right.”
The Board of License Commissioners is tiny. Three commissioners, a handful of full-time employees and 18 part-time inspectors regulate hundreds of bars, restaurants, private clubs, hotels, package stores and a casino. Private events add another level of complexity.
This year, license fees are projected to raise $1.3 million — and $1 million pays for salaries and operational costs.
The board is an independent panel appointed by the governor on the advice of local state senators. One of its jobs is considering complaints when a license comes up for renewal every year, like the one against Magothy Inn.
It just doesn’t often take action.
“I see this as a pattern,” said Catherine Vieweg Taylor, who lives next to the Magothy Inn. “I think this liquor board chooses not to do their duty.”
Abraham Hurdle, the board’s lawyer, sees the board’s role differently.
“The people there want to make sure the laws are enforced and help the licensees,” he said.
In the stretch of homes known as Chelsea Beach, lots are small. There have been complaints about the neighborhood bar since it opened as “Margaret’s” during World War II.
When retired police officer Harry Paesch bought it in 1988 and changed the name, he promised to clean it up.
Todd Taylor’s family was there first. His grandfather built a house near Cockey Creek in the 1930s. It’s where his mother grew up and where he spent time as a boy.
He and his wife, Catherine, inherited the house next to the bar and moved in several years ago. They bought a rental property on the other side.
Last year, the Taylors complained to the board that owner Paul Paesch, Harry’s son, had outstanding zoning violations, allowed dancing without a permit and let noise from his COVID-era beer garden wash over their home.
The board renewed the license without addressing the complaints, and the couple appealed. That case is before the Maryland Court of Appeals.
In March 2025, the Taylors submitted a petition with 10 signatures asking for another hearing before another renewal of the license. Only the Taylors, their new lawyer and an expert they’d hired showed up for it in April.
The board ruled that without all 10 petitioners, no hearing was required. It renewed the license.
State law says it takes 10 petition signatures to trigger a hearing on a license renewal. Hurdle said the board has always interpreted that to mean all 10 have to show up.
“If 10 people sign a petition, is that fair?” he said. “Aren’t you able to face your accusers?”
Not according to the law.
“The statute doesn’t say that,” Schaeffer said in her ruling from the bench.
The petition triggers the hearing, but doesn’t determine the outcome.
When I stopped by the Magothy Inn on Tuesday morning, Paesch wasn’t in. Neither he nor his attorney, former liquor board chair Richard Bittner, responded to a request for comment.
From the outside, the building is a rambling wreck. Unpainted wood covers a converted porch, and a white fence surrounds the outdoor space.
There’s an outdated hearing notice tacked to the wall, another dispute over zoning rules.
Inside, though, it’s bright and clean, ripped from your great-granddad’s 1950s subscription to Men’s magazine. The staff was friendly, if wary.
To them, this fight feels like newcomers vs. old-timers.
“It seems that it suits their purposes to call us new,” Catherine Taylor said.
This isn’t the first complaint about the board this year.
In April, I wrote about a plan to reform the Board of License Commissioners in the General Assembly.
State Sen. Clarence Lam, who represents parts of Howard and Anne Arundel counties, won passage of a bill to address complaints that inspectors were nitpicking minority license holders.
It would have expanded the board to five members to ensure no individual member had outsized influence. Gov. Wes Moore vetoed it, saying it was too constraining.
Bar owners and board members have complaints, too. They’ve asked state lawmakers to end the requirement to weigh zoning problems, loosen rules on dancing, create new licenses and raise fees 35% to cover pay raises.
State and county lawmakers created a task force in 2024 to study the changes. It recommended hiring an outside efficiency consultant, adding a new festival license and making administrative changes.
There were no suggestions about resolving complaints from neighbors.
The dispute over the Magothy Inn is aggravating for the Taylors, but it’s the board that should concern the wider public.
Fabricating a rule that downplays conflicts is a petty abuse of power, with stakes so small no one noticed till now.
“There’s literally nobody who oversees the liquor board,” Catherine Taylor said. “You’re at the mercy of the quality of the board itself.”
Hurdle, the board attorney, thinks outside mediation could help Paesch and the Taylors resolve their problem. He doesn’t see that as the board’s job.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said.
The judge ordered a hearing. When it happens in February, Board Chair Wayne Harris and Commissioners Bernadette Snoops and Charley Sung will likely renew the license.
And the Taylors probably will head back to court.
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