Worcester County officials this week said liquor license violation hearings will no longer be included in video recordings of liquor board meetings.
The move relegates violation hearings back to in-person only events, according to Tom Coates, the attorney for the Worcester County Board of License Commissioners (BLC). He said liquor board regulations are being redrafted now to accommodate for this revision.
Other agenda items for BLC meetings, like requests to issue liquor licenses, would still be included in the video feed. Meetings are live-streamed before recordings become available for on-demand viewing on the county’s website.
The reason for the change is to keep the underage buyers of alcohol employed by police in compliance spot checks – who are sometime referred to as “cadets” – off camera, according to Coates.
This sudden policy shift emerged on Monday, after a county official published the agenda for the March 19 BLC meeting via email. This agenda included a 2 p.m. violation hearing against Burn Wood Fired Pizza for sales to a minor.
However, an agenda revision distributed by email later pushed back that violation hearing to the end of the meeting, with a line break saying, “This portion of the meeting is an Open Meeting but will not be recorded and available online.”
Worcester County has been offered videos of County Commissioner meetings since November 2017. Live streaming of public meetings from its Snow Hill headquarters for other county subcommittees, like planning and zoning, had only started broadcasting last fall. BLC meetings first were broadcast on Sept. 16, according to county spokeswoman Kim Moses.