FRANCHOT AT ODDS WITH COUNTY LIQUOR DISPENSARY...AGAIN
Purchase from Alabama must be returned or penalties will follow, comptroller’s office says
NANCY POWELL ¦ Staff Writer
Comptroller Peter Franchot (Jan. 13, 2012) It might be a new department, but the circumstances have a familiar ring to them, as an obviously peeved Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot is again promising to come down hard on Worcester County’s government liquor dispensary.
This time, the county’s new Department of Liquor Control bought some spirits from the state of Alabama in October, an illegal act, according to Franchot, who apparently had brought the situation to the attention of department head Robert Cowger previously.
“Allow me to be as clear as possible,” Franchot wrote in his Jan. 9 letter to Cowger. “First, your purchase of alcohol from the State of Alabama was illegal.”
He said Alabama had no license or permit at the time to sell liquor into Maryland and that would make it an unlawful supplier to the county department.
Secondly, Franchot wrote, the issuance of a permit to the state of Alabama after the fact would not retroactively legitimize that sale. Maryland has no statute that would retroactively legitimize an illegal transaction of this kind through the issuance of a license or permit. He said his department regards the Alabama shipment to the Worcester County Department of Liquor Control to be contraband and the county should return the inventory to Alabama.
“Regardless of what you ultimately decide to do with the shipment, it cannot, under any circumstances, be brought into the state of Maryland,” Franchot wrote.
Bud Church, president of the Worcester County Commissioners, said the commissioners would discuss Franchot’s letter in closed session before their meeting on Tuesday, but declined to discuss it at this time with the media.
“We will explore our options and are waiting for further communications [from Franchot],” Church said.
In a message to Ocean City Today, Church said the liquor would be returned to Alabama as Franchot requested.
The Worcester County Department of Liquor Control came into being July 1, 2011, replacing the Worcester County Liquor Control Board, an independent operation authorized by the state following the repeal of Prohibition. For all practical purposes, it answered to no one, at least until last year.
For years, many liquor license holders chafed at having to buy their distilled spirits from a government middleman, when they knew they could pay less overall if they could buy direct from private wholesalers.
In 2009, members of the Worcester County Licensed Beverage Association succeeded in bringing in the Comptroller’s Office’s Field Enforcement Division to investigate accusations of the liquor board’s sale of spirits at different prices to different bars and restaurants. That led to the discovery of technical violations of state law and a fine.
The move also renewed discussions of doing away with the board, culminating in the General Assembly’s passage of a bill last year to replace the board with a county department.
Part of that legislation said the director of the Department of Liquor Control “may purchase or otherwise acquire wine and liquor from any source for resale.”
Cowger, who declined comment, did what the law said by purchasing liquor from an out-of-state seller, but Franchot wrote that it was “a serious and costly violation of State law.”
Any further issues arising from that purchase of liquor “or any other illegal activity, will result in vigorous enforcement actions by my Office. This will include the confiscation of all illegal products, and may include the filing of criminal charges against any and all individuals responsible.”
Franchot also wrote that it was “at best preposterous, if not disingenuous, to suggest that the legislature intended to allow the department to purchase products from sources with no legal authority to distribute alcohol in the State of Maryland.”
If Cowger believes that the Department of Liquor Control “requires relief” from Maryland laws governing the distribution and sale of alcohol, Franchot encouraged him “to seek legislative remedies through the Maryland General Assembly rather than engaging in selective compliance with the law.”
Doug Buxbaum, chairman of the Worcester County Licensed Beverage Association that sought the abolishment of the Liquor Control Board said Tuesday in an e-mail that he and the rest of the board think “it would be best if we just watched this one from the sidelines.”
