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‘Lite’ look at booze
bureau raises ire

This is amazing. The Honolulu Liquor Commission's administrator was forced to resign; eight commission employees were convicted federally of essentially being organized-crime figures; and the commission has allowed a culture of corruption to exist for decades. That's not the amazing thing. The amazing thing is that, according to a reader, I'M the bad guy in this picture.

After Administrator Wallace Weatherwax decamped, I suggested in a column last week that a permanent Commission on the Honolulu Liquor Commission be set up to contentiously investigate what apparently is the most corrupt department in city government. That caused a reader (I will keep her name confidential so that her naiveté doesn't result in ridicule from her friends) to write: "I guess you have nothing better to write about. ... It's so typical of you to comment however you please about individuals even when you don't know the true facts. ... You should be sued for some of the comments you make about people."

I've got a pretty big ego -- no, it's true, I know it's hard to believe -- but I doubt that I'm really part of the Liquor Commission's problems. The letter writer's allegation that the eight employees convicted of racketeering, bribery and extortion are pretty much the extent of the Liquor Commission's problems is, well, naive.

The facts -- and I do know a few -- are that the federal case just scratched the surface of the criminal activity by commission investigators, as well as higher-level officials.

ANOTHER LETTER writer with inside knowledge of the corruption (whose identity will be protected so that his/her lack of naiveté will not result in him/her being harmed) laid out a dog's breakfast of sickening behavior by Liquor Commission officials going back 17 years.

It includes higher-level officials receiving bribes from clubs facing loss of their licenses, and free sex, bribes and food from clubs employing minor strippers and prostitutes. One liquor store owner under investigation allegedly played golf with a high-level Liquor Commission official and paid bribes to head off allegations that he was selling booze to minors. And paid for the official's golf.

So, to answer first reader's tirade, yeah, I have nothing better to write about. And I hope a few more heads will roll in connection with the Liquor Commission's shameful criminal activities before someone sues me for simply writing about it.