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by Brew Editors11:00 pmJun 12, 20130

Baltimore Liquor Board: June 6 Meeting

Above: Attorney Melvin Kodenski representing John Ferrari and Mary Uttenreither (of Sweet Caroline’s in Locust Point) before the Baltimore Liquor Board.

Did The Brew alter the space-time continuum at the Liquor Board last week?

All we did was show up at the regular Thursday (June 6) meeting with a camera. Well, we also wrote about the Community Law Center’s new watchdog blog about the board, Baltimore’s liquor licensing body, in the wake of a damning audit. (It’s called BOOZE NEWS: Distilled in Room 215 if you want to read the June 6 installment.)

The attorney-blogger from the Law Center, Christina Schoppert Devereaux, said she witnessed behavior last week she’d never seen before.

Consider their response to the applicants from Sweet Caroline’s who, it turned out, had met with the board members of the Locust Point Community Association, but not the full board.

“Usually the commissioners deliberate quietly so the audience cannot hear before announcing their decision,” Devereux told us. “In this instance, Chairman (Steve) Fogleman said audibly to the other commissioners that he wanted to hear from the community association.”

“I have never heard the commissioners deliberate in public before announcing a decision, but they did it on Thursday,” she added in an email afterwards.

The commissioners may have been on their best behavior for the press but they still managed to “approve some applications whose required documents were not in place and shoddy applications were approved,” Devereux told us.

You can read the details – gleaned from a host of interesting applications that came up, including Liam Flynn’s Ale House, Atomic Books, the Gilmore Pleasure Club and Mimi’s Discount Liquor – in the latest post on Booze News.

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