Plaza 23 Event Center is a black owned small business in Temple Hills, MD. The County is about to force us to go out of business due to a new law that was passed regarding all venues that have public dancing to obtain a dance hall license. The application process for the new law states that it takes a minimum of 90 days to process. NO SMALL BUSINESS CAN STAY IN BUSINESS IF FORCED TO STOP BUSINESS FOR 3 MONTHS. We have been informed by the county to stop all dancing at Plaza 23 until we get our license. So much business has been lost. We've cancelled all since being cited Nov 17th.  We've had to cancel events from renters that wanted to book Plaza 23 for birthdays parties, cabarets, Christmas Parties, and New Years Party, due to the fact that there was going to be dancing. Jobs are lost due to no events. From the security staff, police, cleaning staff, etc, no one can make any money. More importantly, Plaza 23 cannot pay its own mortgage/lease and bills if not allowed to do business. Currently our reputation is tarnished because the county is allowing all other venues to operate during the application process. We have no chance of obtaining new business at this time. It's unfortunate that our license renewal was in the same month as the new law. But, we were told by county officials to continue to operate while they worked on getting the new law into place.

All we're asking the county is to 'LET US CONTINUE TO OPERATE OUR BUSINESS FULLY(WITH DANCING) UNTIL WE ARE EITHER APPROVED OR DENIED ON THE NEW PROCESSING APPLICATION?