Quand la Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission tente de racketter un détaillant de whisky

[Adrian]

Citation

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission charged Spec's Wines, Spirits and Finer Foods with a host of violations and asked that a Texas administrative court either fine the company $713 million or yank the license for each of its 164 stores. But the judges said the only charge that the commission proved was that Spec's might have paid an invoice a day or two late. The court issued Spec's only a warning. But the investigation cost Spec's more than $1 million in legal fees and other costs, and the three-year freeze the commission imposed on issuing Spec's new licenses until the case was resolved kept it from expanding.

https://reason.com/blog/2017/07/06/brickbat-poison-whiskey

 

Citation

After an investigation of the state’s largest liquor retailer, the TABC sought to yank permits for all 164 of the company’s stores — which would effectively shut it down — or hit Spec's with fines of up to $713 million, according to court documents filed last week. The agency also put the company’s expansion plans on ice by freezing Spec’s new permit applications during the three-year probe, records show.

[...]

They poured out the TABC like stale beer in a blunt 151-page ruling. The judges said TABC failed to prove dozens of allegations, rebuked agency lawyers for failing to disclose evidence to their own witness (and the court) and called out the agency for “stacking” charges, a tactic commonly used to pressure defendants into a settlement.

 

In the end, the multi-year prosecution and an eight-day March administrative law hearing — similar to a trial — turned up evidence that Spec’s may have paid a $778 invoice from a wine supplier a day or two late in 2011 under the complicated liquor “credit law” spelling out when payments for booze must be made.

 

The sum total of the sanctions recommended by the judges: a warning, and no fines.

[..]

Spec’s lawyer was particularly critical of the TABC's auditing and investigations chief, Dexter Jones, who oversaw the Spec’s investigation, and TABC General Counsel Emily Helm. Van Huff alleged Helm abused her power in early 2016 by offering to get three new permit applications approved for Spec’s President John Rydman if the company would agree to settle the existing cases.

According to court documents, the TABC said denying the new permits was justified because Spec’s threatened the “general welfare, health, peace, morals and safety” of Texans due to the concerns raised in the agency’s probe.

[..]

The case against Spec’s started with an audit of the retailer’s operations that began in February 2013. Two years later, Van Huff and Rydman, Spec's president and owner, were summoned to TABC headquarters and given a “settlement agreement” proposing to fine the retailer $8.6 million, cancel 16 of its liquor store permits and agree to “enhanced oversight” for two years. 

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/30/texas-liquor-agency-rebuked-case-regulatory-overkill/

 

 

Citation

For more than three hours, top TABC officials were grilled by House members for misusing state resources, taking trips to Hawaii on the taxpayers’ dime, mixing vacation with state duties, misreporting who has been assigned which state-owned vehicles, and cozying up to the very industry they’re supposed to be regulating.

 

[NoName]

Et hop, une paire de bottes en ciment pour les fonctionnaires de la tabc