The Community Law Center’s blog, Booze News, is back from summer vacation with a new report (on the Baltimore Liquor Board’s Aug. 15 meeting) and a new author (pro bono staff attorney Becky Lundberg Witt.)

Some of what Witt saw last month surprised and concerned her.

“The LLC for the Canton Crossing Wine and Liquors case was formed after the hearing,” she noted, in an email to The Brew with highlights of last month’s meeting.

In the MK Liquors case, she noted that an applicant has a criminal record, “which he admitted on the application but provided no details – and the application asks for details!”

On a positive note, she said she has noticed from the files and in hearings that the board “is now asking for information on the character witnesses from the Board of Elections and looking them up on SDAT [the State Department of Assessments and Taxation], which is great.”

Earlier reporting by Witt’s predecessor Christina Schoppert Devereux, revealed that the Board had approved a liquor license for the new Horseshoe Baltimore casino in which character witnesses had not met all the requirements of the law. (Chairman Stephan Fogleman subsequently said the casino would resubmit its application with a new aplicant who could presumably comply. )

Since then, Witt wrote us, she has found that “the Board actually postponed two hearings because they were unable to get this corroborating information on the character witnesses in time.”