The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission has widened a probe into possible violations of liquor laws across North Carolina in the wake of a company's lavish holiday dinner for the Mecklenburg County ABC Board.
The liquor company Diageo spent $12,700 on the Nov. 18 dinner for 28 ABC Board employees and their guests at Del Frisco's, a high-end steakhouse. The bar tab alone came to more than $4,900, including $1,000 for four bottles of Dom Perignon.
Andy Iredale, Diageo's marketing director for North Carolina, told investigators he had bought meals for ABC employees in many cities and counties.
In a report released this week, state Alcohol Law Enforcement agents charged the Mecklenburg board with accepting illegal gifts. It charged Diageo and Iredale with providing the gifts and unlawfully entering an ABC store for reasons other than conducting business.
Michael Herring, chief administrator for the state ABC Commission, said these are the most serious accusations leveled in years.
Herring said his agency has sent Diageo and Iredale violation notices stemming from the Charlotte dinner. They face a fine of $140,000 or a year's suspension of theirliquor permit. They couldappeal.
After news accounts of the dinner, Mecklenburg ABC employees and board chairman Parks Helms repaid $9,334. The company picked up the bill for its two employees and their spouses, as well as the entire $2,032 tip.
The state ABC Commission's chairman, Jon Williams, ordered the investigation in November. The state commission, which adjudicates allegations of liquor law violations, did not issue any comment beyond the agents' report.
Attempts to reach a Diageo spokesman were unsuccessful. The London-based company's brands include Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray, Guinness and Crown Royal.
Iredale told Alcohol Law Enforcement agents he'd also bought meals for local board employees in Asheville, Lenoir, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and in Carteret, New Hanover and Onslow counties.
Iredale said he offered to treat Craig Pleasants, general manager of Wake County's ABC Board, to meals, but Pleasants refused.
Pleasants confirmed that Thursday night. "He just said, 'I'd like to take you out for a meal,' and I said, 'I don't think that's a good idea right now,'" Pleasants said.
Pleasants said that for the past several months, he has been turning down offers of meals - two in the past two days. Typically, someone offers a free meal every couple of weeks, he said, though these are hardly invites to lavish blowouts. "Mostly what we're talking about is a meat and two vegetables somewhere, and it's really talking business," he said.
Pleasants said such meals are allowed under state ABC guidelines.
The N.C. ABC Commission this week gave Iredale 10 days to provide receipts for other dinners provided to ABC employees. Among those are receipts from a Nov. 17 lunch at Charlotte's Ritz-Carlton hosted by Jim Beam Brands for Helms, the Mecklenburg board chairman, and ABC Board CEO Calvin McDougal.
Neither Helms nor McDougal could be reached Thursday.
North Carolina maintains a state ABC Commission that operates a central liquor warehouse, the sole source of products for the stores. The state commission, though, can intervene at a store only when there is a major problem, such as corruption. The local ABC boards that run the stores are appointed public panels with their own bureaucracies.
Critics are using the controversy to renew calls for the state to get out of the liquor business.
Controversies prompted the commission to issue ethics guidelines in 1996 and 2003.
