Officials call for new advertisers

Continued from Page 3 ager Rob Shearman said Tuesday that the metrics are improving, with new clients signed on and more revenue coming in.

“I think Gateway has really finally shown their capability as far as attracting new customers,” he said.

The digital tram ads, however, which company officials pitched as a new, innovative addition for this summer, are not materializing as quickly as staff and committee members had hoped.

“We understand that this has been a rollout that hasn’t been quite as up to speed as the aggressive timeline that we originally set,” Shearman said after reporting that the Gateway techs will likely not be coming to town to troubleshoot the three outof-service screens for another week or week and a half.

Meehan pointed out that company officials may not be aware of the urgency of fixing the screens given the impending close of the tram season at the end of summer.

But on the upside, Meehan said the ads that are running, which right now are only city house ads, look “terrific.” creased costs for fuel and staffing since covid.

“When they are working, they look really really good,” he said.

Meehan suggested offering significant discounts for advertisers to entice more customers.

“If Jolly Roger puts on there, ‘follow me to the Jolly Roger,’ everyone else is going to want to be on there too,” Meehan said.

He and the other committee members said they wanted an update on plans to sell some commercial ads, and fix the non-functioning screens, within the week.

The new fares were expected to result in fewer passengers. But on Tuesday, Transit Manager Rob Shearman presented unexpected figures.

While bus ridership was down about 5 percent from July of last year to this year, the drop was not nearly as significant as staff had projected.

In the tram division, Shearman said deployments, or the number of trams out on the boards, were in line with last year for the month of July.

In turn, the number of trams and riders were up compared to June, which Shearman attributed to staffing that increased as a direct result of a signing bonus offered for drivers at the beginning of the summer.

Tram revenue was also up in July, rivaling totals from pre-covid 2019, because of the fare increase.

“We beat 2019; that’s really good,” said Councilman Tony DeLuca, who sits on the Transportation Committee.

As the summer winds down, department officials are working on advertising end-of-season bonuses to encourage bus drivers to stay on for fall events. namely, the smell of burnt or unburnt cannabis.

Officials are also working to recruit drivers in both divisions for next summer.

Committee members have said they want to get a jump on recruiting employees, as the department typically runs into challenges with the demands of the jobs.

A recruitment video has also been shot and is ready for launch, and McGean said he is working with human resources and budget staff members to come up with ways to entice a quality workforce for 2024.

It also prohibits officers from searching based on possession of cannabis that doesn’t exceed the personal use maximums, or if money is “in proximity” to cannabis without other evidence of intent to distribute.

The law also states police cannot search any part of a car that isn’t “readily accessible” to a driver or that doesn’t likely contain evidence of the driver’s condition if the officer is investigating a person for only driving under the influence of cannabis.

Even a combination of the evidence still wouldn’t warrant a search, according to the statute, which also makes no mention of whether the search prohibitions exclude minors.

So far, since July 1, when adult recreational use of marijuana became legal, Ocean City police have recovered evidence in at least two instances involving searches of cars occupied by minors after an officer detected the odor of cannabis.

“We got a ghost gun out of the car, a fully loaded ghost gun out of the car, so it’s out there and it’s going to be interesting depending on how the defense attorneys handle this case, how far they push it, but [State’s Attorney] Kristin Heiser’s office is ready