Georgianna Tolliver wasn’t surprised when an agent from the Maryland Office of the Comptroller showed up in March 2023 to cite the East Baltimore gas station where she worked for operating without a business license. She’d warned management that the license hanging on the wall was expired, she says.

But what happened next did surprise her: The enforcement agent wrote her name and home address on the criminal citations.

By the time the agent left, Tolliver was personally on the hook for three criminal citations against the High’s convenience store on Erdman Avenue, up to $700 in fines, and potentially even jail time. If she failed to appear in court, the written citations warned, a warrant would be issued for her arrest.

Tolliver, 61, was stunned. She was a local store manager — she had no authority over the business licenses at High’s, a chain owned by Carroll Independent Fuel Co.

“I literally couldn’t sleep worried about this,” Tolliver said in an interview. “I was the fall guy.”

What happened to Tolliver was not an isolated incident. Under state law, the comptroller’s office can issue criminal citations to employees if they happen to be working at a business with a licensing violation. The office issues about 1,200 citations each year, which are punishable with a fine up to $300 and a maximum of 30 days in jail.

Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman is asking state lawmakers to revoke that authority and require businesses to designate a “responsible party” who would receive the citations instead.

“I think this is terrible and unnecessary,” Lierman said at bill hearings last week. “It means we could be issuing a criminal citation to someone who isn’t responsible for even having the license, and that person then needs to go to court to fight it, or pay a fine, or even risk jail time.”

A year ago Lierman’s office defended the policy, but has since changed its position. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the office said the legislation would “correct a flaw in the law” that allows workers to be cited for their employers’ license violations.

Lierman told lawmakers that agents try to avoid issuing citations unless it becomes necessary, visiting businesses more than once and trying to help them get into compliance. But if a business won’t fix the problem, she said, agents will cite whatever employee is present.

Lierman said she does not believe her office’s agents are empowered to use discretion about whom to cite under the law as currently written.

“The problem is that we are expected to issue those citations to somebody that we find, even if it’s somebody who is not responsible for getting that license,” she said.

The bill’s only opponents are concerned about creating another layer of red tape. Businesses are already required to name a registered agent who is supposed to be available to receive correspondence during business hours, said Cailey Locklair, the president of the Maryland Retailers Alliance.

“We agree with the premise here,” Locklair said at a bill hearing. “Issuing these to a cashier doesn’t make sense either, but corporations already have a designated registered agent.” The comptroller’s office wants the responsible party identified by each business to be a resident of Maryland, something that is not required of resident agents.

The citations against Tolliver were dropped when she went to court and explained the situation. She still doesn’t understand why she had to go to court at all — and she says she lost her job at High’s after repeatedly raising her concerns about the citations. Carroll Independent Fuel Co. did not respond to a request for comment. The Erdman Avenue High’s no longer appears in a list of store locations on the company’s website.

The citations no longer show up in Maryland case search because they were dismissed, but they are not expunged, so they could show up in a background check when Tolliver applies for jobs or housing. She thinks the comptroller’s office should take care of the expungement for her.

Most of all, she thinks lawmakers should correct the problem that led to her being cited in the first place.

“Fix it,” Tolliver said. “It is not fair to the everyday worker that’s out here trying to make an honest day’s living. We should not be stressed out about other people’s issues. It’s wrong.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Dylan Segelbaum contributed to this story.