The OLCC

The state administrator Tina Kotek chose to stabilize the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission after a bourbon hoarding scandal announced its retirement on Thursday.

Craig Prins will leave the Oregon Liquor and the Cannabis Commission of June 1st, he said during the Commission's meeting on Thursday. Kotek asked the commissioners to cease the internal wax dog of the state prison system in February 2023, to correct the Commission's course after she had excited the resignation of his former director, one of six high -ranking employees, who were transformed into the deflection of rare bourbon for personal use.

Prins described his decision to retire in a statement to the commissioners.

“We have reached large milestones in the modernization of the OLCC operations and the reconstruction of the public's trust in our mission,” he said. “After I had the honor of working with the committed public staff in this organization, I have full confidence in their ability to build on this progress.”

The commissioners appointed the current deputy director Tara Wasiak to replace Prins from July 1st. Before he came to OLCC, Wasiak was the interim director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

The press spokesman for Kotek, Roxy Mayer, said that the governor wished Prins the best and knows that Wasiak will follow his example of the commission's management with integrity and accountability.

“The managing director Craig Prins jumped into the leadership role at OLCC in a time of the tumult for the Commission,” said Mayer in an e -mail. “He delivered exactly what Oregon needed: stability, consistency and commitment to excellent customer service.”

Before Prins took over, the Commission stumbled from revelations that six employees of the top level, including the then director Steve Marks, had used their positions to get rare, expensive bottles of bourbon for their own use.

Oregon is one of 17 “control states” in which state agencies regulate where and how alcohol can be sold. Wine and beer are available in grocery stores, but hardness is kept in state warehouses and distributed to local spirits shops. The state also sets schnapps prices.

And the possibility of buying rare bottles with alcohol like Pappy van Winkle are to be distributed in quarterly lotteries. Instead, the investigators found that the OLCC employees abused their positions by sending rare bottles to certain shops in which they or their representatives could buy them.

In April, the government of the Government of the Government of the government dropped cases with two former OLCC employees and each denied $ 500. Last week, the Ethics Commission rejected a proposed agreement of 500 US dollars with grades and said it should be exposed to a higher punishment as a former director.

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Julia Shumway is an editor of Oregon Capital Chronicle and has reported government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska. She spent time in the Bend Bulletin and was most recently a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix. Julia, an award -winning journalist, recently reported on the confused efforts to examine the presidential results in Arizona.