Advertising. To provide for advertising for the
purposes of the Town, for printing and publishing statements as to
the business of the Town.
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Aisles. To regulate and prevent the obstruction
of aisles in public halls, churches and places of amusement, and to
regulate the construction and operation of the doors and means of
egress therefrom.
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Amusements. To provide in the interest of the public
welfare for licensing, regulating or restraining theatrical or other
public amusements.
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Appropriations. To appropriate municipal monies
for any purpose within the powers of the Council.
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Auctioneers. To regulate the sale of all kinds
of property at auction within the Town and to license auctioneers.
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Band. To establish a municipal band, symphony orchestra
or other musical organization, and to regulate by ordinance the conduct
and policies thereof.
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Billboards. To license, tax and regulate, restrain
or prohibit the erection or maintenance of billboards within the Town,
the placing of signs, bills and posters of every kind and description
on any building, fence, post, billboard, pole or other place within
the Town.
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Bridges. To erect and maintain bridges.
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Buildings. To make reasonable regulations in regard
to buildings and signs to be erected, constructed or reconstructed
in the Town, and to grant building permits for the same; to formulate
a building code and a plumbing code and to appoint a Building Inspector
and a Plumbing Inspector, and to require reasonable charges for permits
and inspections; to authorize and require the inspection of all buildings
and structures and to authorize the condemnation thereof in whole
or in part when dangerous or insecure, and to require that such buildings
and structures be made safe or be taken down.
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Cemeteries. To regulate or prohibit the interment
of bodies within the municipality and to regulate cemeteries.
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Codification. To provide for the codification of
all ordinances which have been or may hereafter be passed.
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Community services. To provide, maintain and operate
community and social services for the preservation and promotion of
the health, recreation, welfare and enlightenment of the inhabitants
of the Town.
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Cooperative activities. To make agreements with
other municipalities, counties, districts, bureaus, commissions and
governmental authorities for the joint performance of or for cooperation
in the performance of any governmental functions.
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Curfew. To prohibit youth of the Town from being
in the streets, lanes, alleys or public places at unreasonable hours
of the night.
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Dangerous conditions. To compel persons about to
undertake dangerous improvements to execute bonds with sufficient
sureties conditioned that the owners or contractor will pay all damages
resulting from such work which may be sustained by any persons or
property.
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Departments. To create, change, and abolish offices,
departments or agencies, other than the offices, departments and agencies
established by this Charter; to assign additional functions or duties
to offices, departments or agencies established by this Charter, but
not including the power to discontinue or assign to any other office,
department or agency any function or duty assigned by this Charter
to a particular office, department or agency.
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Disorderly houses. To suppress bawdy houses, disorderly
houses and houses of ill fame.
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Dogs. To regulate the keeping of dogs in the Town
and to provide, wherever the county does not license or tax dogs,
for the licensing and taxing of the same; to provide for the disposition
of homeless dogs and dogs on which no license fee or taxes are paid.
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Elevators. To require the inspection and licensing
of elevators and to prohibit their use when unsafe or dangerous or
without a license.
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Explosives. To regulate or prevent the storage of gunpowder,
oil or any other explosive or combustible matter; to regulate or prevent
the use of firearms, fireworks, bonfires, explosives or any other
similar things which may endanger persons or property.
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Filth. To compel the owner or occupant of any premises,
building or outhouse situated in the Town, when the same has become
filthy or unwholesome, to abate or cleanse the condition; and after
reasonable notice to the owners or occupants to authorize such work
to be done by the proper officers and to assess the expense thereof
against such property, making it collectible by taxes or suit of law
against the owner, occupant, or occupants.
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Finances. To levy, assess and collect ad valorem
property taxes; to expend municipal funds for any public purpose;
to have general management and control of the finances of the Town.
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Fire. To suppress fires and prevent the dangers
thereof and to establish and maintain a fire department; to contribute
funds to volunteer fire companies serving the Town; to inspect buildings
for the purpose of reducing fire hazards, to issue regulations concerning
fire hazards, and to forbid the use of fire-hazardous buildings and
structures permanently or until the conditions of Town fire-hazard
regulations are met; to install and maintain fire plugs where and
as necessary, and to regulate their use; and to take all other measures
necessary to control and prevent fires in the Town.
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Food. To inspect and to require the condemnation
of, if unwholesome, and to regulate the sale of, any food products.
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Franchises. To grant and to regulate franchises
to water companies, electric light companies, gas companies, telegraph
and telephone companies, transit companies, taxicab companies and
any others which may be deemed advantageous and beneficial to the
Town, subject, however, to the limitations and provisions of Article
23A of the Annotated Code of Maryland. No franchise shall be granted
for a period longer than 50 years.
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Gambling. To restrain and prohibit gambling.
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Garbage. To prevent the deposit of any unwholesome
substance either on private or public property, and to compel its
removal to designated points; to require slops, garbage, ashes and
other waste or other unwholesome materials to be removed to designated
points, or to require the occupants of the premises to place them
conveniently for removal.
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Grants-in-aid. To accept gifts and grants of federal
or of state funds from the federal or state governments or any agency
thereof, and to expend the same for any lawful public purpose, agreeable
to the conditions under which the gifts or grants were made.
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Hawkers. To license, tax, regulate, suppress and
prohibit hawkers and itinerant dealers, peddlers, pawnbrokers and
all other persons selling any articles on the streets of the Town,
and to revoke such licenses for cause.
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Health. To protect and preserve the health of the
Town and its inhabitants; to appoint a public health officer, and
to define and regulate his powers and duties; to prevent the introduction
of contagious diseases into the Town; to establish quarantine regulations
and to authorize the removal and confinement of persons having contagious
or infectious diseases; to prevent and remove all nuisances; to inspect,
regulate and abate any buildings, structures or places which cause
or may cause unsanitary conditions or conditions detrimental to health;
provided, that nothing herein shall be construed to affect in any
manner any of the powers and duties of the State Board of Health,
the County Board of Health or any public general or local law relating
to the subject of health.
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House numbers. To regulate the numbering of houses
and lots and to compel owners to renumber the same or in default thereof
to authorize the same to be done by the Town at the owner's expense,
such expense to constitute a lien upon the property collectible as
tax monies.
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Jail. To establish and regulate a station house
of lock-up for temporary confinement of violators of the laws and
ordinances of the Town or to use the county jail for such purpose.
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Licenses. Subject to any restriction imposed by
the public general laws of the state, to license and regulate all
persons beginning or conducting transient or permanent business in
the Town for the sale of any goods, wares, merchandise or services,
to license and regulate any business, occupation, trade, calling or
place of amusement or business; to establish and collect fees and
charges for all licenses and permits issued under the authority of
this Charter.
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Liens. To provide that any valid charges, taxes
or assessments made against any real property within the Town shall
be liens upon such property, to be collected as municipal taxes are
collected.
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Lights. To provide for the lighting of the Town.
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Livestock. To regulate and prohibit the running
at large of cattle, horses, swine, fowl, sheep, goats, dogs or other
animals; to authorize the impounding, keeping, sale and redemption
of such animals when found in violation of the ordinance in such cases
provided.
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Markets. To obtain by lease or rent, own, construct,
purchase, operate and maintain public markets within the Town.
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Minor privileges. To regulate or prevent the use
of public ways, sidewalks and public places for signs, awnings, posts,
steps, railings, entrances, racks, posting handbills and advertisements,
and display of goods, wares and merchandise.
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Noise. To regulate or prohibit noise including
the unreasonable ringing of bells, crying of goods or sounding of
whistles and horns.
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Nuisances. To prevent or abate by appropriate ordinance
all nuisances in the Town which are so defined at common law, by this
Charter or by the laws of the State of Maryland, whether the same
be herein specifically named or not; to regulate, to prohibit, to
control the location of or to require the removal from the Town of
all trading in, handling of, or manufacture of any commodity which
is or may become offensive, obnoxious or injurious to the public comfort
or health. In this connection the Town may regulate, prohibit, control
the location of or require the removal from the Town of such things
as stockyards, slaughterhouses, cattle or hog pens, tanneries and
renderies. This listing is by way of enumeration, not limitation.
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Obstructions. To remove all nuisances and obstructions
from the streets, lanes and alleys and from any lots adjoining thereto,
or any other places within the limits of the Town.
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Parking facilities. To license and regulate and
to establish, obtain by purchase, by lease or by rent, own, construct,
operate and maintain parking lots and other facilities for off street
parking.
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Parking meters. To install parking meters on the
streets and public places of the Town in such places as they shall
by ordinance determine, and by ordinance to prescribe rates and provisions
for the use thereof, except that the installation of parking meters
on any street or road maintained by the State Highway Administration
of Maryland must first be approved by the Highway Administration.
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Parks and recreation. To establish and maintain
public parks, gardens, playgrounds and other recreational facilities
and programs to promote the health, welfare and enjoyment of the inhabitants
of the Town.
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Police force. To establish, operate and maintain
a police force. All Town policemen shall, within the municipality,
have the powers and authority of constables in this state.
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Police powers. To prohibit, suppress and punish
within the Town all vice, gambling and games of chance; prostitution
and solicitation therefor and the keeping of bawdy houses and houses
of ill fame; all tramps and vagrants; all disorder, disturbances,
annoyances, disorderly conduct, obscenity, public profanity and drunkenness.
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Property. To acquire by conveyance, purchase or
gift, real or leasable property for any public purposes; to erect
buildings and structures thereon for the benefit of the Town and its
inhabitants; and to convey any real or leasehold property when no
longer needed for the public use, after having given at least 20 days,
public notice of the proposed conveyance; to control, protect and
maintain public buildings, grounds and property of the Town.
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Quarantine. To establish quarantine regulations
in the interests of the public health.
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Regulations. To adopt by ordinance and enforce
within the corporate limits police, health, sanitary, fire, building,
plumbing, traffic, speed, parking and other similar regulations not
in conflict with the laws of the State of Maryland or with this Charter.
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Sidewalks. To regulate the use of sidewalks and
all structures in, under or above the same; to require the owner or
occupant of premises to keep the sidewalks in front there of or adjacent
to free from snow or other obstructions; to prescribe hours for cleaning
sidewalks.
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Sweepings. To regulate or prevent the throwing
or depositing of sweepings, dust, ashes, offal, garbage, paper, handbills,
dirty liquids or other unwholesome materials into any public way or
onto any public or private property in the Town.
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Taxicabs. To license, tax and regulate public hack
hackers, taxicab operators, dray operators, drivers, cab operators,
porters and express operators, and all other persons pursuing like
occupations.
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Vehicles. To regulate and license wagons and other
vehicles not subject to the licensing powers of the State of Maryland.
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Voting machines. To purchase, lease, borrow, install
and maintain voting machines for use in Town elections.
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Zoning. To exercise the powers as to planning and
zoning, conferred upon municipal corporations generally in Article
66B of the Annotated Code of Maryland and any subsequent amendments,
subject, however, to the limitations and provisions of such article.
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The enumeration of powers in this section is not to be construed
as limiting the powers of the Town to the several subjects mentioned.
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