In 1972, a Baltimore City liquor board commissioner remarked to a Sun reporter that a city liquor inspector "probably couldn't find an olive in a martini." That same article, one of a three-part investigative series, reported that the inspectors' "hours are largely their own" and that "most inspectors work during the day when many bars are closed and most others are practically empty."
Over 40 years later, the 2013 legislative audit of the liquor board found that the agency was still mismanaging its licensing, inspections, disciplinary hearings and staff. The highest-achieving inspector performed the minimum number of inspections on 39 percent of her annual work days, presumably collecting her paycheck more frequently. Auditors found that the agency had no substantive written policies or procedures to guide its required statutory functions, perhaps leaving them up to the imagination of each employee.
In the recently released 2016 legislative audit, Baltimore City communities had hoped that they would find a glimmer of improvement.
Unfortunately, state auditors concluded that the liquor board had made little progress in 16 of 24 highlighted problem areas. When the auditors spent months at the agency in 2015 combing through board files, there were still no policies and procedures for licensing, inspections and management of employees. The auditors were forced to use statistical analysis to estimate how many inspections had been conducted during the 2014-15 license year; there was no other way to gather that information because of the agency's poor record keeping. There was no evidence that the chief inspector had performed any supervisory activities. Tens of thousands of dollars of overtime pay within a six-month period could not be justified. Community complaints via Baltimore's 311 system were closed without any evidence of investigation.
As someone who writes legal analysis of weekly liquor board hearings and who represents community associations occasionally before the board, I take solace that at least the deficiencies of this agency are not hidden.
The response of the agency, appended to the audit, either downplayed the findings or blamed them on nefarious outside forces, including the difficulties of teaching inspectors how to enter data into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and the malfunctioning of electronic tablets.
To be sure, agency turnover and coordinating difficulties with other Baltimore City agencies have caused some understandable delays. But this is not a legitimate excuse for all of the agency's problems. For example, the 2013 audit pointed out that 19 out of 27 staff members, some of whom had worked at the agency since the 1990s, had never received a performance review. When the auditors returned to the agency's offices in 2015, they found that for 11 of those staff members performance reviews had still not taken place. On which city or state agency can the liquor board blame that failure? With whom does the buck stop?
The board points out in its response that it has improved its policies and procedures since the auditors' visit, which lasted from January to September 2015. The board fortuitously released a 2016 Policy and Procedure Manual one week before the release of the audit; members had been promising the public release of its policies and procedures since late 2013. Though it is encouraging to hear that the agency believes it has improved since last year, a previous administration made identical promises of radical transformation in 2013, after the first audit came out.
As someone who cares about the liquor board's efficacy, it is difficult for me to see Baltimore residents give up hope in a robust alcohol regulating agency. The liquor board has the statutory authority to be a powerful tool to improve the public health, safety and welfare of Baltimore City neighborhoods.
Imagine the potential positive impact of a Baltimore City liquor board that prioritized, above all, community health and safety. In order to achieve this, the agency must first take sober responsibility for its failures and their historical impact on our city before looking forward to plan how to exceed expectations in the future.
Becky Lundberg Witt is a staff attorney at the Community Law Center; her email is beckyw@communitylaw.org.