Where the grass is greener
I had lost track of some of the goings-on at the ethically challenged Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission over the last few months. When I last checked in in November, the Bourbongate scandal had apparently been put to bed, with the canning of the managers who had been caught scoring rare and expensive whiskeys. They lost their jobs, but they suffered no other punishment, even though what they did appears to have been at least slightly criminal. Meanwhile, the agency's outrageous warehouse construction scam was marching on.
But I had missed something. Marvin Révoal, the agency commissioner who became chairman of the board after the old chairman, Paul Rosenbaum, was ignominiously fired, had resigned in September for unspecified reasons. This was shortly after it had been revealed that like so many honchos at the OLCC, Révoal had himself inquired about scoring some of the rare hooch. He claimed he was just asking for a friend. Like Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.
Anyway, I'm doing all this catching up now, in light on this week's news that Révoal has decided to sell the knowledge he gained in his decade-plus on the OLCC board. He's now an executive for a pot consulting company operating out of Eugene.
The former chair of the governing board overseeing the embattled Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission quickly parlayed the gig into a job with the cannabis industry.
Three months after Marvin Révoal resigned, he took a job as director of regulatory and business development with CannXperts in Eugene, the company announced in late December.
The company touted Révoal’s long tenure with the OLCC and his “experience in liquor and cannabis regulatory system growth and development.” CannXperts says it offers consulting advice to cannabis businesses on regulation and compliance.
Is that legal? Supposedly the state ethics commission is going to say. But given that agency's track record, I'm sure they'll find that old Marvin wasn't an "administrator" and therefore can get away with it. We're talking about Salem, after all.
It's a snake pit, that OLCC. I can't help but sense that bad stuff going on in there.
I know of Marvin Révoal very well, and he is one of the most incompetent people I’ve ever been around. He had zero business being a commissioner at the OLCC. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s done other unethical things while at the OLCC. Doesn’t surprise me at all that he would take a job at a pot consultant company, he’s just that way, very “used car salesman” type of guy.
ReplyDeleteIsn’t this yet another example of how WA gets these line items more right then OR?
ReplyDeleteSales tax, finally reviewing it (~2012 if I remember right?) & just getting rid of the state-run liquor stores.
Not sure where I stand on bottle deposit or not these days.
Wa doesn’t have one at all…much as I’m loathe to admit it, like the urban growth boundary, how much good is it doing us today?
It’s a minor issue.
Leave it to us to blend grubby incompetence & corruption on something that really needn’t be complicated; storing & selling some lousy liquor in 2024.
WA tried to poison pill privatization by sticking a punitive liquor tax. Still didn't work.
DeleteOLCC should have been shut down years ago but it's growing instead.
Let not forget their bottle deposit side too. Something that was originally enacted to cut down on littering (which dropped, but not because of the deposit) and has been morphed into recycling rationale.
The whole point of "control" states like Oregon (where the state is the liquor distributor) was to (1) limit overconsumption of alcohol, and (2) get organized crime out of the business. Oregon is failing at (1) and has successfully moved the bad guys from outside the building to inside the building.
ReplyDeleteYou know it's almost like the big money folks don't want us to have anyone that is competent, so we have no foundation to make progress against the corruption and distractions.
ReplyDeleteBig money folks left town.
DeleteThe real scandal is the insanely high potency of the marijuana that’s being sold to mostly young people at state-sanctioned dispensaries. ER doctors and psychiatrists are already seeing its links to schizophrenia and psychotic episodes. There is nothing natural about it. If you think the mental health crisis is bad now in Oregon, just wait.
ReplyDeleteOregon needs to get out of the liquor business. It’s ridiculous and wasteful. Shut down the OLCC, sell off all infrastructure, move enforcement operations to the Oregon State Police, move compliance activities to the Oregon Deartment of Revenue, and allow sales of liquor from grocery stores and such.
ReplyDelete