The basement room was full of contraband booze and butts, and even a moonshine still confiscated from a Howard County teenager, but Comptroller Peter Franchot warned that “there?s not going to be any party gifts” for reporters.
The room in the Treasury Building was lined with some of the $382,000 in alcohol and tobacco products confiscated by the comptroller?s 18 armed agents to illustrate enforcement in the past year.
“We?re going to go after every scofflaw,” Franchot said, especially with a looming deficit. The enforcement efforts are “vital to the principle that everyone must pay their fair share,” he said.
The alcohol generally was confiscated from bars and clubs that didn?t have licenses to sell it. The cigarettes and cigars were taken from people buying them in Virginia and North Carolina, with low tobacco taxes, for resale in states with higher taxes, such as New York, which charges $7 a pack in taxes.
“These products tend to wind up in the hands of minors,” Franchot said.
Alcohol arrests were up this year, but “it?s just unpredictable,” said John Horney, a former Baltimore County police officer who heads field enforcement. It doesn?t necessarily reflect an increase in illegal sales.
Arrests for allegedly transporting untaxed tobacco products are down, but “we may be victims of our own success,” Franchot said.
Cigarette smugglers have “sought other means to bypass Maryland” because of heavy enforcement efforts, Horney said. The enforcement division costs $1 million more than it brings in, but that doesn?t count any fines judges impose on those arrested, Horney said.
The moonshine still on display was the concoction of a Howard 15-year-old who was “experimenting,” Horney said. The backyard contraption used a gas grill and camouflage-painted trash can, along with a copper cooling tube in a five-gallon home supply pail.
The moonshine wasn?t high quality, Horney said. “He wasn?t a master brewer.”
QUICK FACTS
» Agents made 359 arrests for alleged motor fuel violations ? largely over selling untaxed “red” gas intended for off-road use such as farming.
» Agents collected $1.4 million in delinquent sales and use taxes.
