Community Law Center statement on Liquor Board commissioners up for confirmation in the Maryland Senate

Examples of unacceptable actions taken or statements made by the current gubernatorial appointees to the Board of Liquor License Commissioners for Baltimore City

[A document provided by the CLC to Sen. Bill Ferguson]

1. Reversing suspensions given by prior commissioners without a public hearing.
One of the first decisions that the new commissioners made after their appointments in July 2015 was to reverse the suspension of the liquor license for the Stadium Lounge, 3351-53 Greenmount Avenue. The owner of the bar had been caught by Baltimore City vice detectives, not only of paying out on illegal video poker machines, but, when the police attempted to execute a search warrant, he hid money and other evidence from the police in his car. The prior set of commissioners, after the licensee admitted the violations, heard lengthy testimony from neighbors about the extreme consequences that Stadium Lounge cause in their everyday lives. They suspended the license for six months, in view of all of the evidence presented. The new chairman undid the suspension after only 71 days, which had been appealed to the Baltimore City Circuit Court. This action set the tone for the new set of commissioners.

2. Inadequate vetting of applicants
The gubernatorial appointees to the BLLC rarely ask any substantive questions of the applicants for liquor licenses. Most hearings are pro forma.

Example: Posh-Mix, 8-14 Park Avenue, October 15, 2015. The applicants for this Class B license own two other Class B licenses in Baltimore City. At each of the other two establishments, these applicants had been found guilty of significant violations of liquor law that impacted public safety: two different incidents of assault (including a stabbing) as well as serving alcohol after hours. On their application, the applicants said that they had never been found responsible for a violation of alcoholic beverages law, and these incidents were not raised during the hearing to transfer the new license to these same individuals.

3. Incomplete applications.
Every week, the Board of Liquor License Commissioners approves applications that are missing documents or other important and required information. The Board often says that they are approving the application “subject to” the applicants’ submission of the required information. However, Art. 2B § 10- 202(a)(4)(v)(1) says that “[a] license hearing may not be scheduled unless the board determines that the application is complete.”

Example: Langermann’s on Light, 1542 Light Street, September 10, 2015.
In this hearing, the applicant had submitted incorrect information on his application: he stated in his application to transfer the license into his name that he had never been found guilty of a violation of alcoholic beverage laws when, in fact, he had. His attorney submitted a “correction” to this misstatement the afternoon before the hearing, which the community opposing this transfer was not able to view until the hearing. Under the section of state law cited above, the Board should either not have accepted this information or should have postponed the hearing for two weeks. The Board did neither: they accepted the information though the application was not complete and correct.

Example: Pole Play, 415 E. Baltimore Street, August 6, 2015.
The Board approved the transfer application of an Adult Entertainment license to a new licensee, who had submitted the following diagram as the “floor plan” required in the application.

4. Memoranda of Understanding/Agreements between Communities and Licensees
On September 17, after the testimony in a violation hearing had been taken, a community leader testified that the licensee in question had been a bad neighbor and had repeatedly violated the terms of an “MOU” with the community association. The Chairman of the BLLC interrupted the community representative and informed him that the BLLC does not have the authority to enforce MOUs between community groups and licensees. To the contrary, the Maryland Court of Appeals held in BLLC v. Fells Point Café in 1994 that the agency does have the authority to enforce restrictions to which the licensee had voluntarily agreed. The Chairman had no knowledge of the circumstances under which the particular MOU had been negotiated; he merely told the community representative that the agreement was irrelevant, which was wildly untrue and dismissive of community concerns.

5. Unequal Application of the Law
On October 8, 2015, the Robert W. Coleman Community Association, opposing a transfer application, attempted to submit a letter supporting their position from their City Councilperson, Nick Mosby. The Board loudly objected to this submission, saying that the letter was submitted “too late,” though there was no rule of procedure about how far ahead of time documents must be submitted to be considered by the commissioners. Two weeks later, on October 22, 2015, Waverly Brewing Company submitted a letter from their city councilperson, Mary Pat Clarke, in support of an application, and the commissioners accepted it without any complaint. The current appointees treat licensees with favor and community associations with suspicion; this discrepancy is unacceptable.

6. Hardship extensions:
Article 2B § 10-504(d) states that alcoholic beverage licenses expire after 180 days of disuse. However, the Board has the authority to grant one 180-day extension to a licensee who requests one, if the commissioners find that there would otherwise be an undue hardship to the licensee. This set of appointees has given many additional hardship extensions beyond the one allowed in § 10- 504(d); these decisions were outside of the statutory authority provided by Article 2B.

Example: 1213 Edmondson Avenue. The license transferred to this address in Harlem Park was the old license belonging to the Martick’s restaurant. The license has not been used since the restaurant closed in 2008. In contravention of the 180 day rule, the license was transferred to a new licensee at the Harlem Park address in 2013. This transferee has never opened the business since the transfer was approved, even though Art. 2B § 10-503(d) states that a transfer must be completed within 180 days of its approval. During their December 10, 2015 hearing, the appointees approved yet another extension of 180 days for this license, though the license expired years ago and the more recent 2013 approval is also expired.