{"id":8165,"date":"2017-06-30T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8165"},"modified":"2017-06-29T20:35:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T00:35:07","slug":"more-crime-at-the-liquor-monopoly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8165","title":{"rendered":"More Crime at the Liquor Monopoly"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Montgomery County Police Department has reported<\/a> that two men, one of whom worked for the county\u2019s Department of Liquor Control (DLC), were arrested for a series of liquor thefts from trucks parked at the county\u2019s warehouse.\u00a0 The Washington Post<\/a> and Bethesda Magazine<\/a> also reported the story. \u00a0Note that this was not only an inside job but that DLC’s security procedures were so inadequate that the suspects were able to commit eight different thefts before being caught! \u00a0But neither the Post nor Bethesda Magazine fully examined the history of criminal, unethical and suspicious activity at DLC.<\/p>\n

Consider these other recent events.<\/p>\n

1. In November 2014, NBC4 discovered that DLC employees were\u00a0skimming booze from deliveries<\/a> and attempting to sell it to licensees under the table<\/a>.\u00a0 People inside DLC told NBC4 that the scams had been going on for years.\u00a0 Four delivery workers were fired and another quit after NBC4\u2019s undercover investigation.\u00a0 Yet another worker was fired later<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. That same month, NBC4 caught DLC employees drinking and driving on the job<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. In March 2015, the county\u2019s Inspector General found that DLC\u2019s warehouse was run with sticky notes<\/a>.\u00a0 He said \u201cas many as 154 cases a day go missing without anyone investigating why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corruption and ethics issues go back a long, LONG ways at the liquor monopoly.\u00a0 In 2001, its Director pleaded guilty to misconduct in office, misappropriating funds and felony theft<\/a>.\u00a0 A subsequent Inspector General\u2019s report blamed the county for failure of oversight<\/a>.\u00a0 In 1980, a consultant who found that DLC was steering disproportionate business to a company connected to the County Executive was forced out<\/a> \u2013 by that same County Executive.\u00a0 That incident mushroomed into a major political scandal, complete with secret tapes<\/a> and hiring abuses<\/a>, known as \u201cLiquorgate<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 All of this is on top of continued poor service for decades<\/a> including two consecutive<\/a> New Year\u2019s Eve meltdowns<\/a>. \u00a0No wonder consumers flee the liquor monopoly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next year, elections will be held for County Executive, County Council and the state legislature.\u00a0 Which candidates will stand up against DLC and advocate for ending its monopoly status once and for all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. The Montgomery County Police Department has reported that two men, one of whom worked for the county\u2019s Department of Liquor Control (DLC), were arrested for a series of liquor thefts from trucks parked at the county\u2019s warehouse.\u00a0 The Washington Post and Bethesda Magazine also reported the story. \u00a0Note that this was not … Continue reading More Crime at the Liquor Monopoly<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,1449],"tags":[1545,1439,1724],"class_list":["post-8165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-department-of-liquor-control","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-department-of-liquor-control","tag-liquor-monopoly"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-27H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8165"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8171,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8165\/revisions\/8171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}