Liquor regulators partying on taxpayers' tab

[TexasTowelie]

This graphic humorously references a trip that top state liquor regulators took to the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators in 2015 at a cost of more than $7,000 in taxpayer money. The illustration was created by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission during work hours on a state computer with input from top agency officials, records show. Pictured from left to right are TABC Director Sherry Cook, Licensing Director Amy Harrison, Analyst Jesse Valdez and then-TABC technology contractor Jim Harrison.
Illustration by TABC

No agency can kill a buzz quicker than the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, but behind the scenes state liquor regulators have shown they know how to party — all on the tab of taxpayers and members of an industry they oversee.

Consider the boozy junket the top TABC brass took to San Diego in the summer of 2015 — depicted in a humorous illustration officials created during work hours at the agency. It portrays agency director Sherry Cook, licensing chief Amy Harrison, a TABC analyst and an agency contractor riding in a plane while holding or guzzling from bottles of Lone Star Beer.

"Here we come California!" reads the caption above the doctored picture. "Woo Hoo!!!"

Cook couldn’t say precisely how or if the illustration was used internally, but in an interview with The Texas Tribune she acknowledged that using government computers to create a cartoonish picture showing state alcohol regulators downing beer may not have been done “in the most appropriate manner.”

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/24/liquor-regulators-partying-taxpayers-tab/

[font color=330099]The NCSLA conference is at Waikoloa Beach this year. I wonder if people would want to attend if it was in Beaumont?[/font]