Following the Globe’s questions about the payments, state Treasurer Steven Grossman, who oversees the agency, asked the Massachusetts inspector general’s office to conduct a “top-to-bottom’’ review of the agency. He said he will also hire an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive audit.
“While it didn’t happen on my watch, I recognize that anything that goes on has the ability to put a cloud over your operations,’’ said Grossman, who took office in January. “The goal is to get beyond it and that it never happens again.’’
The liquor commission, which has fewer than two dozen employees and a $2 million annual budget, is charged with overseeing more than 22,000 liquor stores, restaurants, bars, wholesalers, and suppliers registered with the state. The resolutions have cost the state about $1.7 million, paid out of the state’s settlements and judgments fund, according to the treasurer’s office.
In addition, an agency investigator is scheduled to be tried this fall on charges he accepted a $3,000 bribe to help a convicted felon obtain a liquor license. The worker, Arthur Hitchman, a former Melrose alderman and aide to Senator Richard R. Tisei, who has since left office, pleaded not guilty to the charges, but lost his job in December.
Kim Gainsboro, who chairs the commission, said the case appears isolated. Internal auditors did not find evidence of similar payoffs at the agency last year, she said. The agency has also taken steps to make it more difficult for investigators to solicit bribes, including assigning multiple enforcement officers to handle some licenses and regularly reassigning them to different parts of the state.
Grossman said the agency today is well run, and its staff is competent and professional.
Last year, the agency found more than 500 violations of the Liquor Control Act statewide - from underage drinking to illegal gambling at bars - more than all the citations issued by the state’s 351 cities and towns combined.
