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Baltimore liquor board exec resigns
Six weeks after a scathing state audit found a lack of controls on the operations of the Board of Liquor License Commissioners in Baltimore, the panel’s executive secretary has resigned.
Samuel Daniels, a former liquor board inspector who was promoted to chair the daily operations of the agency, is leaving his post this month, said Baltimore City Councilman William H. Cole IV on Friday.
Cole said the resignation is linked to the findings of the state audit.
The Maryland Office of Legislative Audits on March 28 released its examination of the liquor board, which is a state agency. The audit concluded, in part, that “in each area of the BLLC’s operations we reviewed, comprehensive written policies and procedures were lacking.”
Specifically, the city has more liquor inspectors than it needs, the 91-page report stated. And the agency, which has issued 1,360 liquor licenses as of December 2011 that generated a total of $2.2 million in revenue from fees in fiscal year 2012, did not have effective managerial and operational controls in place. In addition, no monitoring system was in place for reporting on liquor license inspections.
During 2011, the year the audit focused on, liquor inspectors in Baltimore inspected the licenses in 96 establishments, while 202 licenses went uninspected, the audit found.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake did not respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon, citing it as a state “personnel matter,” her spokesman Ryan O’Doherty said in an email.
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