The D.C. inspector general and the attorney general’s offices are looking into allegations of ethical violations by the chairman of the alcohol board as they search for a cause to fire him, several sources with knowledge of the proceedings said. The two investigative bodies join the mayor’s office, which has been looking at accusations leveled against Chuck Brodsky that he gave favor to a liquor wholesale company after it hired an attorney who is his friend. New allegations into the alleged ethical breach by Brodsky and attorney Emanuel Mpras led to the expanded inquiry, some source told The Washington Examiner.
But it may also be the product of a political push to get Brodsky out of office. When former board member Mital Gandhi charged Brodsky with pushing through a regulation change favoring the wholesale company represented by Mpras, Gandhi might also have given the Vincent Gray administration the dirt it wanted to rid the city of an alcohol board chairman who has angered some community groups.
It doesn’t help Brodsky that Mpras
isn’t well liked. Mpras has not returned numerous calls for comment.
“[Mpras] may alienate people because he’s effectively a street fighter,” said David Bernstein, a former Mpras client. “He is direct, to the point and is appropriately aggressive and that may alienate certain individuals.”
Mpras first appeared in the public eye in 2001, when he was hired to try to bring the popular New York strip club Scores into the District. He’s now better known for working with people like Bernstein, whose homeowners association hired Mpras to petition the alcohol board to deny a liquor license to the Penn Quarter nightclub Museum of Arts and Sciences. The six-month battle ended with the club’s owners making concessions to Bernstein’s group to get the license.
Brodsky said the case is an example of Mpras not getting what he wanted in front of the board.
But it’s a fight over those concessions outlined in a contract — called a “voluntary agreement” — that has Brodsky and Gray butting heads.
There are 1,700 voluntary agreements signed between the city’s bars and the communities that surround them. The agreements often dictate operation hours and sometimes decor, such as the color of an awning. Once a community protests a license, a bar won’t likely get one without an agreement.
“That means voluntary agreement is a bit of a misnomer, since it’s not really voluntary,” Brodsky told The Washington Examiner. Unlike previous board chairmen, he has held community groups to the legally required 190-day time frame for hammering out the agreements. That hasn’t gone over well with neighborhood commissioners, who have the consensus-building mayor’s ear.
“They’ve painted me as a pariah and now they’re pushing against me,” Brodsky said.
