Ka Leo O Hawaii

According to the City Auditor's report released in April, the Honolulu Liquor Commission has inadequate management and lacks the necessary leadership it needs to implement changes.

The report was issued in response to a City Council resolution requesting a review of the investigative and enforcement functions of the Honolulu Liquor Commission.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann said, "Even before the draft audit reached my desk, I discussed with my nominees the demands for better oversight of the commission staff as well as the importance of maintaining the highest ethical and legal standards among the staff at the commission."

City Auditor Leslie Tanaka spent over seven months conducting the investigation, focusing primarily on organizational structure and personnel management. According to his report: "the commission's administrative management is reported to be unresponsive and unsupportive of staff, communications or suggestions are often perceived as hostile and personnel-related decisions do not appear to be made in the best interest of commission operations."

City Councilman Charles Djou said, "From my perspective they have lousy managers that have been asleep at the wheel."

In response to the report, Djou asked Liquor Commission Administrator Wally W. Weatherwax and Chief Investigator John Carroll to step down. However both declined to do so.

"Weatherwax and Carroll have been managers throughout all of this," said Djou. "They have allowed a culture of corruption to exist and nobody's held them accountable." Liquor Commission Chair Dennis Enomoto said, "If you look at isolated instances, we have had problems; but I know there's no corruption."

In the three months since the report's release, Enomoto said they have been meeting several times a week to discuss problems and they are in the process of creating a five-year strategic plan.

Enomoto added that although there have not been any significant changes thus far in the commission regarding managerial and personnel issues mentioned in the report, they are doing everything they can to complete the plan and implement it by July.

Djou is aggressively trying to enforce changes but he has no authority.

The structure of the Liquor Commissions gives it a level of autonomy that makes outside enforcement difficult.

"The state government authorizes the regulation of alcohol but the city government has the responsibility to oversee the regulations," said Djou. "The structure of the current system is flawed and it ultimately leaves the Liquor Commission under the control of the Liquor Commission."

Although Enomoto recognized the problems within the commission, he said the constant criticism from outside sources was not helping. "We've gotten so much bad press and all of it stems from incidents that occurred in 2002."

The situations Enomoto referred to were a 57-count indictment made in May 2002, which included charges of extortion and racketeering, against eight former Honolulu Liquor Commission employees -- six of them were liquor investigators and two of them were former supervisors.

Six of the men pleaded guilty and the remaining two were found guilty of the charges by a jury.

Other issues in recent years include lawsuits filed by former employees who said they were harassed for speaking out about the agency and, according to an article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, an investigation by the FBI.

In an attempt to send a message, Djou said they have cut the Liquor Commission's budget slightly but feels that more needs to be done.

"I would hope all these scandals have prompted the state legislature to make a change in regulating the Liquor Commission," said Djou.

The City Auditor's report also addressed the regulation of the commission and made recommendations to help solve the agency's problems.

"We are a small but hardworking agency," said Enomoto. "We want nothing more than to resolve these problems, and to have a model agency that functions properly. We are talking about the issues in the city auditor's report, and I hope people can see we are trying to implement changes and will be more supportive of us."

According to Djou, the changes aren't happening quickly enough. "All this talk about making changes is nice but talk is cheap. It's meaningless. I need to see some action. There is no such thing as an acceptable level of corruption in our government. Something has to change."

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