Changes are coming for booze in Anne Arundel County.

Prompted by a toxic cocktail of complaints, a state senator is leading the latest attempt to reform the county Board of License Commissioners.

“I have been flooded with many complaints about perceived biases in the liquor regulation process in the county, and complaints about the board being overly aggressive and taking actions on minor issues,” state Sen. Clarence Lam told other lawmakers in February.

If this sounds familiar, you’re old. Thirty years ago, Korean-American liquor store owners complained about overzealous enforcement and penalties.

Today, merchants whose families come from India and other parts of South Asia are making similar complaints. So are Black and Hispanic merchants.

“Like the time changes, things keep on changing,“ said Ashish Parikh, founder of the Asian American Retailers Association of Maryland. ”I think transition to other ethnicities has happened.”

When state lawmakers meet in Annapolis for their 90-day session, the No. 1 topic is drink (or where to get one). Bills to change the bewildering concoction of state laws governing local sale and consumption come from every corner of Maryland.

Know how many alcohol bills were sent to Gov. Wes Moore for his signature? 58.

“We get all the liquor bills, both introduced to the Senate and the ones that come over from the House,” said state Sen. Pam Beidle, chair of the Senate Finance Committee. “We have to vote on all those, and they’re usually pretty easy.”

In St. Mary’s County, lawmakers want to lower the cap on licenses around the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Other counties want you to be able to have a nice IPA, chardonnay or bourbon at festival grounds, golf simulator bars or barbershops.

State Sen. Shaneka Henson stepped in when existing law threatened a charter school set to open next fall at the Annapolis Mall.

The management company considered canceling the lease because major chain restaurants threatened to pull out if the new tenant put them in violation of a ban on selling alcohol within 1,000 feet of a school.

“It’s to give that limited exception,” Henson said.

Liquor boards are the tiki drink of government: time-consuming, complicated and often mind-numbing. To make it more complicated, Annapolis has its own liquor laws and its own board.

“For people who are deeply involved in the liquor board process — each county has one — the board does things that are distinct and different in a lot of different ways,” said Abraham L. Hurdle, attorney for the Anne Arundel board.

“The board is extremely even-handed in violations.”

Lam heard differently after his Howard County district was redrawn to include part of Anne Arundel.

Complaints included inspectors waiting until a store was at its busiest before a pop inspection or citing a business for operating an illegal dance club when customers cut some impromptu dance steps. The crackdowns seemed to target minority business owners, he said.

“We’re hearing complaints about people saying their sink is in the wrong place,” Lam said. “They need architectural plans.”

Lam’s bill will expand the Anne Arundel board from three to five members, ensuring that no individual member has outsize influence. The board will have to write a recusal policy to avoid conflicts of interest and allow license applicants to note their ethnicity to make potential bias easier to spot.

“This seems like just basic good governance,” Lam said during the hearing before Beidle’s committee.

Wayne B. Harris, the current chair, was appointed in 2023 after serving as chief inspector. He told state lawmakers that he presided over cases he initiated, but that none were appealed to the courts.

“I’ve served two years on this board since that time,” he said. “I know of no complaints.”

Lam’s bill will prevent a repeat by setting a one-year hiatus before an inspector can be appointed to serve on the board.

County police send the majority of citations to the board for consideration, particularly for underage drinking or sales. The board and inspectors also focus on other areas, such as local rules on sink access.

That could explain a review of architectural plans, something another county might not do.

“I’ve heard there are concerns they don’t take some of the circumstances into account, and instead they’re very uniform,” Hurdle said. “The benefit of that, as the board looks at it, is that it’s very fair.”

Board hearings are public and streamed online. Yet decisions and penalties are not made public, only transcripts. Those are posted on the board website months after a hearing.

Even before the new law takes effect, Lam is reshaping the board. Hurdle has started drafting a recusal policy.

Lam recommended that the governor appoint Charley C. Sung, a Howard County attorney who lives in Anne Arundel. A Korean American who served on the Howard County liquor board, he would replace an outgoing member in Anne Arundel.

Parikh, the retailers’ association leader, believes the changes could help. But he wants Anne Arundel to recognize that it has a reputation for unfairly targeting minority business owners.

“We want them to be more respectful and cooperative, like all of the other liquor boards,“ he said. ”We have not heard any complaints from any of the jurisdictions apart from Anne Arundel County.“

And more changes are sure to come.

“Two years ago, we had a bill from the Eastern Shore where they wanted to have a liquor license in a cigar lounge,” said Beidle, an Anne Arundel Democrat. “And we were like, no, no, no. That’s against the indoor smoking act, the indoor Clean Air Act.”

The sponsors came back and said there were two in Anne Arundel County.

“We didn’t know that it was done locally,” Beidle said. “It should have never been done. They went against state law, and the health department never inspected or knew about it.”

So now a commission is studying what to do about unicorn smoking lounges.

“Apparently,” Beidle said, “it’s a big deal to have a cigar and a bourbon.”