Liquor enforcement needed

The scheduled elimination of the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement is a poorly thought-out fix to Maine’s budgetary woes. The long-term consequences of the elimination of the BLE will be far more costly in terms of alcohol-involved tragedies than any immediate, monetary savings realized.

There are far too many reasons why the elimination of the BLE is a poor public policy decision to delineate for purposes of this commentary. In my opinion however, one reason stands out more urgently than the rest. It is the question of, who’s going to be enforcing the administrative violations?

In order to realize the complete facts behind this issue, one needs a brief explanation of the authority of a liquor enforcement officer compared with that of a municipal or state police officer. Any law enforcement officer in Maine has the authority to enforce the criminal or civil violations of the law involving alcohol. Examples of these are the laws pertaining to minors possessing or transporting alcohol, drunken driving, trying to buy alcohol with a false identification card. However, some laws are enforceable only by an officer of the BLE. These laws are administrative in nature and pertain to the business or liquor license holder. The penalties for violating such laws include such things as the suspension or removal of the offending business’s liquor license. The presence of this administrative authority creates a tremendous amount of voluntary compliance among liquor licensees within the state.

With the elimination of the BLE those businesses with liquor licenses that sell and-or serve alcohol to minors, stay open past 1 a.m., serve visibly intoxicated patrons or buy alcohol at cheaper prices out of state can now do so with little fear of getting caught. In fact, even if they are discovered in violation by local or state police there is no enforcement action that these officers can take.

Maine’s immediate solution (according to the Department of Public Safety Spokesman Stephen McCausland in the Portland Press Herald, Feb. 11) to this problem is to hire three civilian liquor inspectors. The inspectors will have the authority to enforce the administrative liquor laws but will not be law enforcement officers with the powers of arrest. They will, according to McCausland, “conduct routine inspections of liquor license holders and respond when complaints are forwarded by police.” They will work Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 with no overtime allowed. At least that’s the current plan.

This “solution” is fraught with problems. The logistics are impossible. For example, there are more than 4,000 licensed liquor establishments in Maine. With the realities of travel time, inspection time and paperwork it would take these inspectors more than a year and a half to conduct even one inspection of all the licensed premises in Maine. And this is without investigating a single complaint forwarded by the police. How many liquor violations in bars do you think these inspectors will uncover working Monday thorough Friday 9 to 5?

Most bars probably aren’t even open.

In the years that I have worked in law enforcement in Maine dealing with liquor-related issues, I have found that the greater majority of liquor license holders are very conscientious and responsible to the law. In fact, most will go out of their way to make sure they are doing everything right. These are the liquor license holders that Maine wants selling alcohol and they should protect them. There are a minority of unscrupulous license holders who will take advantage of this huge lapse in enforcement. Their actions (such as buying alcohol out of state) will hurt the responsible ones and could put many of them out of business. This would not bode well for the public safety of the state.

On March 13, Michael Cantara, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, was quoted as saying enforcing liquor laws “is not an area the state needs to be in,” because police officers, not state enforcement officers, make most liquor law arrests. The article further quotes him as saying that in 2001 state liquor enforcement officers made only 573 of 2,585 liquor-law arrests. At first glance this does indeed seem to indicate that local police are more involved in liquor activities than the BLE officers. However, scrutinize that comment and one realizes it doesn’t really say much of anything.

First, we don’t know what Cantara means by “liquor law arrests.” There are a number of criminal violations that can be defined as pertaining to liquor laws. Unless we have a better definition it’s hard to tell which laws he is talking about. Second, it is a skewed comparison to begin with. There are

16 liquor inspectors in Maine compared to thousands of police officers. Whatever statistic one chooses to compare the two by, the group with the highest number of members will probably come out on top. Whether one is comparing violation summonses issued, miles driven in a year, or liquor law arrests made, the numbers for the police officers will almost certainly be higher in every case. Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be to examine the percentage of time spent enforcing liquor violations. If local police spent a higher percentage of their time enforcing state liquor laws than the BLE officers, then I’d agree there would be little sense to having the BLE around. However, I highly doubt this is the case.

Alcohol abuse is a problem in Maine. I have personally witnessed tragic alcohol-related deaths that could have been prevented by strong administrative enforcement. This cut will substantially impair local law enforcement’s ability to address these issues. It will cause the state to lose untold number of years of liquor enforcement experience by letting veteran BLE officers go; the institutional memory loss is incalculable.

What amounts to a short-term savings enabling the state to balance the books will be paid thricefold or more in terms of individual tragedy, victim resources, health care and other intangible factors. The state is not saving anything, only deferring. The price will be paid in the long run by individual citizens in the state of Maine; the same citizens that the government is indebted to protect. Yes, taxes need to be reduced in this state, but eliminating the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement is not the right way to go about it.

Scot Mattox is a sergeant with the Portland Police Department.