Sign the Petition
Poster for windows and community boards.
Restaurants can already send customers home with beer and wine. We're supporting a local option for licensed restaurants to offer sealed cocktails to go under clear rules for responsible service.

Our coalition brings together neighbors, restaurants, and local businesses from across Anne Arundel County and Annapolis.
We're still building the coalition. We'll add more names soon!
We're still building the coalition. We'll add more names soon!
Own a business or represent a local organization? Add your name to the coalition.
Add your name—or your business or organization—to show support for giving local restaurants the option to sell cocktails to go.
To-go cocktails are a straightforward way to give local restaurants more flexibility and customers more choice—with clear rules designed around responsible service.
Restaurants can already send customers home with beer and wine. Allowing a cocktail simply adds another option under clear rules.
Other Maryland jurisdictions already allow cocktails to go. Anne Arundel County and Annapolis can build on approaches that are already working close to home.
The proposal can tie cocktails to a food purchase, keeping the focus on restaurants and making the drink an extension of the meal.
Cocktails to go would be sold in containers that must remain closed in transit.
Taking alcohol home from a restaurant isn't new. Customers can already leave with beer and wine. Cocktails to go apply that same idea to a sealed drink prepared by the restaurant you're already ordering from.
Maryland also allowed the practice temporarily during the pandemic, giving restaurants and regulators real-world experience with how it can work responsibly.
A change like this should work for restaurants, retailers, customers, and the broader community. Here are straightforward answers to some of the questions we hear most.
Liquor stores are important local businesses, and this proposal isn't meant to replace them. The proposal concerns sealed cocktails prepared by restaurants for takeout. It doesn't change where customers can buy bottles of beer, wine, or liquor; it simply lets a restaurant send a customer home with the drink that would otherwise have been served alongside their meal.
No. This would apply only to licensed establishments and would operate under specific rules governing packaging, hours, food requirements, and responsible alcohol service. It's a limited extension of restaurant privileges, not unrestricted alcohol sales.
Nothing about this proposal changes Maryland's DUI or open-container laws. Cocktails would have to remain sealed in transit, just like other alcohol being taken home. The rules of the road stay exactly the same.
First, the state has to give Anne Arundel County and Annapolis the green light. Then our local licensing boards can decide the details, like how cocktails are packaged, when they can be sold, and what restaurants have to do to participate. Signing the petition helps show lawmakers that people here want that option.
My name is Matt Proud. I've lived and worked in Annapolis for more than 15 years, and like everyone else, I have my go-to places - El Toro Bravo, Boatyard, Adam's, and so, so many others.
At some point, I started wondering why I could take home beer or a corked bottle of wine from a restaurant, but not a cocktail from that same restaurant. It worked during COVID, so why not bring it back?
The more I looked into it, the more I realized that it's not complicated. Other Maryland counties are already doing it. Why can't we do it too?
So I started talking to friends about it. What began as a pretty simple question has grown into a coalition of neighbors, restaurants, and local businesses working to bring cocktails to go to Anne Arundel County and Annapolis.
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Poster for windows and community boards.
Poster for restaurants and neighborhood businesses.
Poster for bars and tasting rooms.
Have a question or want to get involved? We'd love to hear from you.
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