"Review ordered of liquor agency; Mass. treasurer seeks audit after state pays $1.7m to settle cases" July 18, 2011|By Todd Wallack, Globe Staff
The Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission has spent an amount nearly equal to its annual budget in the past two years to resolve a trio of employment cases involving harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Globe through public records requests.
Did they use the "Hey, I was drunk excuse?"
The cases - two settlements and a court judgment - stem from complaints filed by former workers and a prospective employee over the past decade.
In one case, settled in 2009, the agency presented a novel defense to accusations it had unfairly denied a 57-year-old veteran a job. The defense: The two available slots had to go to relatives of lawmakers, or the Legislature would not fund the positions, according to legal documents....
Oh, isn't that JUST PRICELESS!!!
I was told that was EXTORTION!
The patronage case began after Ronald Bridges, a 57-year-old former Marine, complained he was repeatedly passed over for investigator jobs at the liquor commission in 2001 and 2002, arguing it might have been because he was black or over 40. In addition to his military service, which gives him preference in civil service hiring, Bridges has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Northeastern University and worked in corrections.
He filed a case with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in 2002. The MCAD ruled against the liquor commission, prompting the agency to settle two years ago with Bridges for $324,000, according to the agency.
In the other cases, a Suffolk Superior Court judge in 2009 ordered the commission to pay more than $1 million in court costs, legal fees, and damages to Janet DeCarlo-Staples, a former assistant secretary, after a jury found she lost her job in retaliation for filing a sex-discrimination complaint with the MCAD in 2000.
And in the third case, the liquor agency agreed last summer to pay $360,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the agency’s former executive director, Cheryl Marshall, who alleged she was forced to resign in 2007 after being subjected to racial harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation for reporting misconduct within the agency. Marshall is black.
Well, you are up to about $1.7 million there. I wonder how many teachers, cops, and firefighters that would buy, 'er, pay for. All so nephew Johnny the family idiot could get cut a taxpayer-funded check (with generous Massachusetts state benefits including pension and health).
Oh, isn't that JUST PRICELESS!!!
I was told that was EXTORTION!
The patronage case began after Ronald Bridges, a 57-year-old former Marine, complained he was repeatedly passed over for investigator jobs at the liquor commission in 2001 and 2002, arguing it might have been because he was black or over 40. In addition to his military service, which gives him preference in civil service hiring, Bridges has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Northeastern University and worked in corrections.
He filed a case with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in 2002. The MCAD ruled against the liquor commission, prompting the agency to settle two years ago with Bridges for $324,000, according to the agency.
In the other cases, a Suffolk Superior Court judge in 2009 ordered the commission to pay more than $1 million in court costs, legal fees, and damages to Janet DeCarlo-Staples, a former assistant secretary, after a jury found she lost her job in retaliation for filing a sex-discrimination complaint with the MCAD in 2000.
And in the third case, the liquor agency agreed last summer to pay $360,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the agency’s former executive director, Cheryl Marshall, who alleged she was forced to resign in 2007 after being subjected to racial harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation for reporting misconduct within the agency. Marshall is black.
Well, you are up to about $1.7 million there. I wonder how many teachers, cops, and firefighters that would buy, 'er, pay for. All so nephew Johnny the family idiot could get cut a taxpayer-funded check (with generous Massachusetts state benefits including pension and health).
The agency said in court documents at the time that the allegations were unfounded, but later agreed to the settlement.
Why not? It is NOT THERE MONEY they are FORKING OVER to "settle"; it is TAXPAYER DIME, folks!!!!!!! For MISMANAGEMENT -- and WORSE!!!! By the VERY SAME STATE that LECTURES YOU in MORALITY all the time! Gotta take away your kids, etc, etc.
“A business decision was made that it was in the best interests of the Commonwealth to settle the lawsuit,’’ said Kim Gainsboro, who chairs the commission.
Ummm, WHOSE BEST INTEREST?
Certainly NOT the TAXPAYERS!!!
It was in the BEST INTERE$T$ of the $TATE AGENCY to KEEP IT QUIET and OUT OF COURT where the PRESS likes to HANG OUT!
Better off making your own with a long, tall, front-page pitcher:
"Region awash in new wave of niche breweries" July 22, 2011|By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff
“It’s almost like the recession caused a wave of Yankee ingenuity,’’ says Bryan Greenhagen, founder of Mystic Brewery in Chelsea, yet another start-up coming online soon....
You wanna give that guy a breathalyzer.
Yup, the still-ongoing Grand Depression was a good thing.
If you got lemons make.... BEER?
To beer specialist Andrew Crouch, author of “Great American Craft Beer,’’ New England is merely catching up with California and other parts of the country already experiencing their own craft beer boomlets. “These aren’t accountants looking for a second career,’’ Crouch says. “They’re social-media savvy, entrepreneurially minded people who are willing to take risks - and who tend to brew more eclectic, experimental beers’’ of limited appeal to mass-market tastes.
They sound like a band of Wall Street brokers, only a lot more fun.
This new wave of niche breweries is the most noteworthy since the mid-1990s....
How many will survive the long haul? No one knows. Greenhagen estimates it takes sales of 2,000 to 5,000 barrels a year to become profitable, a number Ipswich Brewery’s Rob Martin, who heads the Massachusetts Brewers Guild, questions. He says it’s more like 10,000 barrels annually before the necessary economies of scale are realized and profitability reliably flows.
Nothing but air left in the keg.
“Brand building takes at least a few years,’’ says Martin. “This is a big boys’ business, and in the end you’re working against some of the biggest breweries in the country.’’
I'm sorry, I've had enough Globe rot gut for one day.
Help yourself if you like the glug-glug of pure sh.... (gurgle, gurgle, gurgle)
--more--"
Related: Police say Marshfield boater told them he drank 10 beers
No, that's not me. I pilot this blog 100% sober -- a real bummer when you think about it.
:-(
