Never has a Bee editorial achieved what it desired with such speed as when it called on the Legislature to look at downsizing the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (“Does ABC not have enough work to do?”; Jan. 28).
It pains me to report that the Legislature has been downsizing the department by scandalous neglect for the past few years, and Californians are less safe for it. In addition to being fully sworn peace officers, ABC investigators have a specialized knowledge in combating crime that other law enforcement agencies frequently rely on. In just the past year, ABC investigators shut down an illegal drug-dealing operation that had connections to violent gangs throughout Southern California (Operation Grasshopper), and it is inconceivable that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder could have crowed about the largest law enforcement action ever taken against a drug cartel from Mexico (Project Coronado) without the contributions made by ABC investigators on the Inland Regional Narcotics Enforcement Team.
ABC investigators – often alone – work in the most undesirable places at the most undesirable hours around the most undesirable people society has to offer. Added to that responsibility are their new post-9/11 duties as part of the homeland security safety net.
There are 81,000 licensed liquor establishments. It’s important to keep in mind that the criminality going on in these establishments does not stay in them, but permeates into neighborhoods and across city and county lines.
The state wastes money training ABC investigators in specialties no other peace officers have, only to lose them to higher-paying law enforcement agencies. And to further exacerbate the problem, just recently hit them with furloughs equivalent to a 15 percent pay cut.
For the record, the ABC investigators that the editorial chided for wasting their time busting a Super Bowl betting pool at a country club were responding to a variety of complaints of illegal activity going on at the club. To not have responded would have generated further complaints that they weren’t doing their jobs. If they’re not responding to public complaints, it further erodes the public’s confidence in the police.
Should The Bee and any legislator reading that editorial be sincerely interested in learning more, they can call Shelley Bishop, president of the California Association of State Investigators, who also conducts TRACE program operations, finding the alcohol suppliers to kids involved in fatal accidents – yet another of the many valuable jobs ABC investigators do.