Gov. Wes Moore’s office confirmed Wednesday that Moore is removing three of the four members of Baltimore’s Board of Liquor License Commissioners, including longtime head Albert Matricciani Jr.

Moore named Donald L. Chambers Jr. to the board, and reappointed Granville Templeton III to another term. At Thursday’s liquor board meeting, Templeton was voted the new chair. “The appointments office is working to fill the two remaining seats” left open by the removal of Edward L. Reisinger, a former Baltimore City Council member, and alternate Harvey Jones, according to a statement Wednesday from David Turner, communications director and senior adviser for Moore.

Matricciani, who colleagues say helped modernize the board, a state agency, in the years after a blistering audit, confirmed he was removed from the position.

His departure comes roughly 9 1/2 years after he was first appointed to Baltimore’s liquor board by then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young. “I’ve served at the pleasure of four mayors and then the governor,” said Matricciani, who was surprised by his position’s longevity. “I thought [the removal] would happen long ago.”

Matricciani’s appointment in 2016 followed a change in state law that transferred the power of liquor board appointments from then-Gov. Larry Hogan to the city. Last year, however, legislators again amended the law to grant the governor authority to appoint and remove board commissioners.

Matricciani, a lifelong Baltimorean, said he was proud of his nearly decade of service with the board. “I think that it’s a terrific agency,” he said. “I’m proud of what we’ve done with it. I think we’ve professionalized it.”

Among his accomplishments was the establishment of a community liaison to mediate relationships between residents and businesses that serve alcohol, a role Matt Achhammer has held since 2018. Prior to that, disputes between neighbors and businesses would often be heard during liquor board hearings, leading to long sessions.

Now neighborhood associations and businesses are more likely to sign memorandums of understanding, or MOUs, that can dictate the businesses’ operating hours and impose other requirements. And most liquor board hearings are over within an hour or two. “I think that’s been a big change and a very positive one,” said Matricciani, a former Court of Special Appeals judge. “I was used to running a courtroom.”

In an emailed statement, Achhammer said the board has come a long way since a scathing 2013 state audit found its inspectors routinely closed 311 complaints without investigating them, among other issues. He praised Matricciani for his reforms, saying he “transformed the agency into the high performing and reliable organization that it is today.”

The challenges facing the liquor board, Matricciani said, include striking a balance between enforcement and being patient with those who might not understand the ins and outs of Baltimore’s liquor laws. “The licensees come from all kinds of backgrounds. Lots of them are kind of new to our city and our country,” he said. “I’m sympathetic to those people. On the other hand, they have to abide by our rules and regulations.”

The liquor board has not been without its critics. Amy Petkovsek, executive director of Community Law Center in Baltimore, frequently works with residents who feel that bars, restaurants and other businesses in their neighborhoods are violating liquor laws.

Petkovsek thinks the liquor board has been slow to hold bad actors accountable. During Matricciani’s time as chair of the liquor board, he heard complaints from residents as well as local police and health officials about individual businesses that sold booze in the city. In such cases, he frequently sided with the businesses.

“We’re not talking about one-time parties, one-time situations,” Petkovsek said. “These are patterns of behavior where leniency has been the response.” She hopes to see the replacements do more.

Asked if the board had been too lenient on local establishments, Matricciani had his own view. “People move to Fells Point and they buy a house in between two bars and they want to do quiet research in their studies late at night, and they come to us and say, ‘What are you going to do about this?’ I don’t know what to say.” He’s been tempted to ask: “Why did you want to move to Fells Point?”