Hotels looking to change pet policy in Ocean City

OCEAN CITY, Md. – During the off season in Ocean City, you can only bring your pets some of the time, but that’s a policy that local hotels and associations, are trying to change.

“Right now, you can have your pets beginning October 1 and going through April 30, on the beach and the boardwalk,” Susan Jones, the Executive Director of the Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Association (HMRA) said.

But some hotels in Ocean City say that’s not enough time.

“We have so many people who are now taking pets, that we felt there needed to be an increase in the length of time that people could actually take their pets on the beach,” Jones said.

So the HRMA  says they have a plan to welcome more furry friends to the resort town.

“We’re not specifically looking for the boardwalk so much, we are talking about north of 33rd to extend the pet season and allow May and September in the mix,” Jones said.

And hotels are ready to accommodate those extra vacationers.

“We completely understand that at this point we’re almost up to twenty hotels that accept pets in the area,” Jackie Ball, the owner of Park Place Hotel, said.

And extra pets in the town means extra owners, which all means more business during the off season.

“We certainly believe that if we would strengthen and lengthen the season, then people would come, so if you get people here staying in the hotels, that would have a ripple down effect and maybe the restaurants could be open because there is business in here to support them,” Jones said.

And that’s something that will make business owners, and pet owners, happy.

“We see in the off season, once you can even bring the dogs to the boardwalk, everyone loves to do it, so I think that it would make, in the off season, customers very happy,” Ball said.

The HMRA says that right now, they have no formal plans to propose any changes to the city council.