Budget Cuts Prevent Idaho Booze Cops From Going To Bars Alcohol Agents Ordered To Stay In Their Office For Half The Year

Tom Beal paces his Coeur d’Alene office with the unspent energy of a caged animal.

His work is not here in this tidy room with no windows. It’s out on the road, in the hundreds of bars, liquor stores and other places that sell alcohol in North Idaho.

But he can’t leave.

Money is so tight at the Idaho Alcohol Beverage Control Bureau that - among other cuts - all agents are ordered to stay in their offices every other week.

The cutbacks anger some business owners, upset law enforcement officials and even force some alcohol agents to overlook potential law breakers.

“I’m getting paid to sit in the office and do nothing,” said a frustrated Don Broughton, the sole alcohol beverage control agent for seven counties in southern Idaho. “I should be out working with the public and doing what I was hired to do.”

Officials with the Department of Law Enforcement - of which the ABC Bureau is a part - say the drastic action is necessary to prevent the bureau from landing $14,000 in the red come the end of the fiscal year in June.

They hope to save money on gas, travel and vehicle expenses by keeping agents in their offices half the time.

But the ABC agents, whose job it is to patrol bars and license new alcohol establishments, say the cutbacks go too far.

“You simply can’t do your job sitting in the office,” said Elizabeth Kitchen, a Coeur d’Alene agent. “We’re getting paid to sit in the office. It doesn’t sound very good, it doesn’t feel very good. Sometimes you feel guilty.”

With agents on the road less often, some alcohol business owners say they’ve seen a growing number of competitors violating the state liquor laws.

“We see things happening out there that are illegal, yet they can’t go out there and enforce the law,” said Deen Lady, general manager of Panhandle Distributors, a beer and wine distributor based in Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s like having police officers that we’re paying the taxes for and they can’t get out on the street. It’s irritating.”

More work, less money

The sign in Broughton’s Pocatello office reads: “Due to budgetary constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel will be shut off until further notice.”

“Need I say any more?” he asked.

There are 10 alcohol beverage control agents in the entire state of Idaho. It’s their job to license all businesses that sell and distribute beer, wine and hard liquor - everything from bars to convenience stores.

They also make sure these establishments don’t break the myriad of laws that go along with selling alcohol.

They watch for bootleggers trying to sell out-of-state spirits. They make sure bars stop serving alcohol at the right time and don’t sell to minors. Other laws regulate everything from alcohol prices to how and where beer is advertised.

Coeur d’Alene agents Beal and Kitchen are responsible for between 600 and 700 businesses in the five northern counties.

Before the cutbacks, Beal used to put 2,000 to 3,000 miles on his state car a month visiting those establishments. His enforcement area extends from just north of Coeur d’Alene to the Canadian border.

“Our job is where that alcohol license is - that convenience store, that bar, that liquor store,” Kitchen said.

Beal has been an alcohol enforcement agent since 1977. During that time he’s watched the number of alcohol purveyors multiply. Last year alone, the bureau issued more than 700 new licenses, said John Lewis, assistant law enforcement director.

What hasn’t grown is the number of agents.

The bureau asked for a total of six additional agents at various times during the last six years, said Eileen Tremblay, principal budget analyst for the state Legislative Services Office. They were never granted.

“We’re doing more with less all the time,” Beal said.

Last September, the ABC Bureau was ordered to cut $16,200 out of its $812,100 budget. Gov. Phil Batt had ordered many state agencies to cut 2 percent from their budgets after tax revenues were lower than projected.

The cutbacks hit the ABC Bureau hard - especially in its operating budget, which covers agents’ field expenses, said Rick Cronin, Department of Law Enforcement fiscal officer.

Most of the money had to come from operations to avoid layoffs, he said.

Overnight travel was eliminated, along with training.

Agents were told that their long-distance phone calls could last no longer than 15 minutes - a difficult task when it can take hours to go over the laws and documents with licensees.

Agents previously worked evening shifts four times a month. It was a good time to check up on bars and their night crowds. Now they’re restricted to one night shift a month to avoid the cost of reimbursing agents for dinner.

On Feb. 7 an internal memo was issued calling for “more drastic action.”

“Effective immediately, arrange your schedules to work one week in the office and the next week on the road,” the agents were ordered.

Department of Law Enforcement Director Robert Sobba said the cuts were necessary.

“We have a responsibility to the communities but we also have a responsibility to meet our budget. It’s a very difficult one to balance out,” Lewis said.

But Amy Kliner, spokeswoman for Gov. Batt, said she was surprised to hear the bureau is having to take such drastic measures this far into the fiscal year.

“They’ve known (about the cutback) since September - two months into fiscal year,” she said. “All of the agencies have had to live with the 2 percent holdback.”

Kliner and Tremblay said if the bureau was having that much financial trouble, the Department of Law Enforcement could have asked for a supplemental request during the legislative session.

It didn’t.

“We’ve been overlooked because we have made do and made and made do,” Kitchen said. “I think we’re taken for granted because we’ve always made do so well.”

Bars may know agents’ schedules

Broughton suspects that one of his bars is selling alcohol to underage youths. For some time now he’s been trying to catch the operators in the act, with help from the mother of one teenage drinker.

But every time the mother has tipped him off that her daughter is in the bar, Broughton has been unable to check it out because of his work restrictions.

A man called Broughton last week, tipping him off to gambling at certain establishment. “He said, ‘You better get out here and do something,’ and I had to say ‘no-can-do.’ I can’t do anything because I’m sitting here in the office.”

Kitchen and Beal suspect the businesses they police have caught on to their weekly schedules.

“Sure they know; no one’s dumb here,” Kitchen said. “They know that ‘Hey, she’s out here this week, she won’t be here next week.”’ Lady, the beer and wine distributor, said he’s seen businesses blatantly violate liquor laws since the cutbacks. He believes that other distributors are selling alcohol in illegal quantities and giving it away for free unlawfully. He’s seen bars put up illegal advertisements.

Despite their frustrations, business owners and law enforcement have only praise for the agents themselves. “These agents around here are the best I’ve ever worked with,” Lady said.

Instead, he puts the blame on government officials and taxpayers who want the laws enforced but don’t want to pay for it.

Department of Law Enforcement officials will discuss budget and spending priorities at the end of the month, Director Sobba said. If the ABC Bureau needs more money badly enough, it could ask the Legislature for a supplemental increase next session.

Lady put it this way: “They ought to give them the funds they need to do their job or they need to quit worrying about the laws in general.”

, DataTimes