Tag Archives: Alcoholic Beverage Control

California State Government, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Essential Public Records Act Improvement AB1819 Signed By Governor Gavin Newsom Yesterday — Requires Agencies To Allow Requesters To Photograph Records — And Probably To Copy Electronic Records To A USB Drive — Freaking Take That, Government Bad Actors — Like California Alcoholic Beverage Control — And Los Angeles City General Services Division — And Pretty Much Every Business Improvement District Repped By Soon To Be Disbarred If There Is Any Justice Attorney Carol Humiston

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Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed AB1819 into law. This bill will require agencies subject to the California Public Records Act to allow requesters to photograph records at no charge during inspection. Although it originally would have required agencies to allow the use of portable scanners, a late amendment only requires the use of copying equipment which does not touch the record.

The law also allows agencies to forbid the use of equipment which “would result in … [u]nauthorized access to the agency’s computer systems or secured networks by using software, equipment, or any other technology capable of accessing, altering, or compromising the agency’s electronic records.” On the one hand there’s no reason to include a clause like this unless the law is meant to apply to electronic records as well as physical records. This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that an early amendment limited the law’s application to “physical records” but then that was removed in later versions.

But there will be a lot of resistance to allowing requesters to make electronic copies and it will probably take litigation to sort this out. In any case, reaction to this law seems to be divided between people who see the value immediately and others who cannot imagine that agencies would forbid people to take pictures of things with their phone. But they will. And do. So I thought I’d close out this announcement with a couple of stories about it.
Continue reading Essential Public Records Act Improvement AB1819 Signed By Governor Gavin Newsom Yesterday — Requires Agencies To Allow Requesters To Photograph Records — And Probably To Copy Electronic Records To A USB Drive — Freaking Take That, Government Bad Actors — Like California Alcoholic Beverage Control — And Los Angeles City General Services Division — And Pretty Much Every Business Improvement District Repped By Soon To Be Disbarred If There Is Any Justice Attorney Carol Humiston →

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California State Government, Public Records Act Pragmatics

AB1819 Passes Assembly — Now On To Senate — A Tiny But Essential Improvement To The California Public Records Act — Will Require Agencies To Allow Requesters To Copy Records At No Charge — Using Their Own Equipment — Includes Electronic Files — Take That, Department Of Alcoholic Freaking Beverage Control!

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Assembly Bill 1819, which would require agencies to allow requesters to copy records using their own equipment at no charge, was unanimously passed by the Assembly yesterday and now it’s on to the Senate. As I wrote in March when the bill was introduced, most agencies already do this for paper records, although there are some which, in their frenzied desire to obstruct oversight by the very citizens they were created to serve, do not.

Most notable among these in my experience is the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control which, in addition to being plagued by unchecked corruption, is also imbued with the kind of paranoiac institutional culture that enables heavily armed power junkies like Special Agent In Charge Gerry Sanchez of the Los Angeles Metro Office to feed their need to control by forbidding requesters to take photographs of records during the inspection process.

As amended the bill will also require local agencies to allow copying of electronic records using the requester’s own equipment unless to do so “would result in…[u]nauthorized access to the agency’s computer systems or secured networks by using software or any other technology capable of accessing, altering, or compromising the agency’s electronic records.”

This clause is much more consequential for my own work, as many, many, many business improvement districts, mostly under the baleful influence of Carol Humiston, the world’s angriest CPRA attorney, refuse to allow me to copy electronic records during inspection unless I pay them outrageous fees for expensive storage media.

Humiston designed this policy explicitly to impede access to records by driving up the costs, an illegal plan for which she is presently under investigation by the State Bar. Her BIDdies certainly can’t argue convincingly that use of the requester’s own equipment, e.g. a USB drive, WOULD result in compromised security (as opposed to MIGHT so result in some feverishly imagined world) this bill will likely put an end to Humiston’s illegal nonsense.

And interestingly this bill has drawn no significant opposition, not even from the California Downtown Association or other assorted BID fronts that habitually oppose even the mildest and most unobjectionable improvements in the Public Records Act.1 E.g. this year Todd Gloria’s AB 1184, which merely clarifies that existing state records retention law applies to emails.

Anyway, passing the Assembly unanimously is a good sign, and fingers crossed for the Senate. You’ll find no pre-hatch chicken counting around here, though. We saw in 2017 how determined coalitions of well-funded shadow-dwelling BIDdies can sink even very well-supported bills in the reconciliation process long after they’ve passed one house or another. Turn the page for a transcription of selections from the Assembly floor analysis of the bill.
Continue reading AB1819 Passes Assembly — Now On To Senate — A Tiny But Essential Improvement To The California Public Records Act — Will Require Agencies To Allow Requesters To Copy Records At No Charge — Using Their Own Equipment — Includes Electronic Files — Take That, Department Of Alcoholic Freaking Beverage Control! →

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Hypocrisy, Miscellaneous

Ultra-Corrupt Former ABC Agent Will Salao Is Running A Lobbying Firm For Alcohol Licensing — And Representing Himself As A Knowledgeable Former ABC Special Agent In Charge — The California ABC Is Not Happy About This And They Submitted A Letter To Judge John Kronstadt Asking Him To Prevent Salao From Doing This As A Condition Of His Sentence — Which Will Be Handed Down On March 28, 2019 — Government Seems To Recommend Sentence At Low End Of Sentencing Guidelines For Indicted Salao Co-Conspirator Scott Seo — Although It’s Hard To Be Sure Because A Lot Of Their Reasoning Is Under Seal

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Don’t forget that on Thursday, March 28, 2019, at 8:30 AM in Judge John Kronstadt’s Courtroom 10B in the First Street Federal Courthouse ultra-corrupt former ABC agent Will Salao and his thoroughly indicted co-conspirator Scott Seo will be sentenced for their ultra-corrupt crimes. Although probably Will Salao is going to get less than Seo because it seems likely that he is a cooperating witness and Seo is not.2

And recently some sentencing material was filed with the court but it was all filed under seal so we’re not to know what was in it. But just now the government filed an unsealed version of their recommendations for Seo’s sentence. You can get the sentencing position here and the exhibits here. The first item is fairly interesting, and the government recommends the low end of the guidelines-based sentence because Seo has a family to support.

However, one of the exhibits is really interesting. It’s a long letter from ABC general counsel Matthew Botting describing the fairly appalling fact that Will Salao is presently running a consulting business in the advertising for which he characterizes his last job as “Supervising Agent In Charge of the ABC/LA Metro District Office,” omitting salient adjectives like “disgraced,” “corrupt,” “indicted,” and so on.

I have essentially zero sympathy for the ABC on anything at this point because my recent experience has made it clear that they’re all a bunch of power-drunk sociopaths, but I can certainly see their point. The upshot of the letter is that they ask Judge Kronstadt as part of both Seo’s and Salao’s sentences, to bar them from representing, advising, or consulting with people about anything to do with the ABC.

I wonder, though, if this kind of restriction is actually within a judge’s power to impose. It seems at least plausible to me that it’s a violation of the First Amendment. Maybe it’s allowable if they’re forbidden from lobbying for pay? But maybe not. As always, turn the page for a transcription, and maybe come out to the sentencing hearing next week!
Continue reading Ultra-Corrupt Former ABC Agent Will Salao Is Running A Lobbying Firm For Alcohol Licensing — And Representing Himself As A Knowledgeable Former ABC Special Agent In Charge — The California ABC Is Not Happy About This And They Submitted A Letter To Judge John Kronstadt Asking Him To Prevent Salao From Doing This As A Condition Of His Sentence — Which Will Be Handed Down On March 28, 2019 — Government Seems To Recommend Sentence At Low End Of Sentencing Guidelines For Indicted Salao Co-Conspirator Scott Seo — Although It’s Hard To Be Sure Because A Lot Of Their Reasoning Is Under Seal →

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California State Government, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Yesterday — March 6, 2019 — The Assembly Committee On The Judiciary Introduced AB-1819 — Would Require Agencies Subject To The California Public Records Act To Allow Requesters To Copy Records With Their Own Equipment At No Charge — Mostly Agencies Already Allow This But Some Incredibly Obstinate Obstructionists Do Not — Looking At You, Alcoholic Beverage Control — Hence This Law Is — Sadly — Incredibly Necessary

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The California Public Records Act presently requires agencies to allow anyone to “inspect” records at no charge.3 This is an incredibly important right, tempered only slightly by the fact that the law also allows agencies to charge people for copies of the records.4 The ability to charge is used by too many agencies as a way to discourage free inspection, and one way that they do this is to forbid people from making their own copies with their own equipment.

This has been an issue in California for decades,5 but it’s become much more prominent with the widespread use of phones and extremely portable document scanners. These days pretty much every member of the public already owns photographic equipment capable of making sufficiently high quality reproductions of paper records. So not only is it extremely disconcerting when an agency forbids photography of records, but the refusal affects many more people than it might have in the past.

Just for instance, probably in response to the paranoid psychosis of Special Agent in Charge Gerry Sanchez, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has recently begun to forbid me from photographing records, justifying their obvious obstruction with various nonsensically unsupportable claims about security and cell phones. So what a pleasant surprise to learn yesterday of the introduction in the Assembly of AB-1819, which would amend the CPRA to state explicitly that agencies must allow people to make their own copies at no charge.

The bill was introduced by the entire Assembly Committee on the Judiciary, so I imagine that that means it has pretty widespread support. Even the three Republican members of the Committee are listed among the sponsors. And it’s hard to imagine what legitimate reasons there might be for opposing this. But it never hurts to speak up, so consider getting in touch with your representatives and supporting this essential bill. And turn the page for a red-line version showing the proposed changes.
Continue reading Yesterday — March 6, 2019 — The Assembly Committee On The Judiciary Introduced AB-1819 — Would Require Agencies Subject To The California Public Records Act To Allow Requesters To Copy Records With Their Own Equipment At No Charge — Mostly Agencies Already Allow This But Some Incredibly Obstinate Obstructionists Do Not — Looking At You, Alcoholic Beverage Control — Hence This Law Is — Sadly — Incredibly Necessary →

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California State Government

When A Neighborhood Has More Liquor Licenses Than Are Ordinarily Allowed It’s Still Possible To Get New Licenses — It’s Just Necessary To Give Reasons Why The New Licenses Will “serve a public convenience and necessity” — And It Turns Out That The Alcoholic Beverage Control Department Accepts Gentrification — Which In This Context Is Called “Revitalization” Or “Resurgence” — As A Reason — Not To Mention The Fact That Already Vital Neighborhoods Can’t “Revitalize” — Unless Of Course The Wrong Kinds Of Vitalizers Are Ignored

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The social control of alcohol is one of the eternal sites of contention in our City’s gentrification forever war. Zillionaires conspire with the City to shut down bars that attract people of color in Hollywood at the same time as they’re conspiring with the LAPD to overlook CUP violations by white-oriented bars.

Council offices intervene with the ABC on behalf of hipster-friendly alcohol-soaked events while supporting business improvement districts that arrest thousands of homeless people for drinking beer on the sidewalk, often right next to happy hipsters swilling $20 craft cocktails, also on the sidewalk but immunized against arrest by nothing more than a velvet rope.

This idea, this fundamental tenet of the zillionaire elite, that poor people, that people of color, can’t be trusted with access to alcohol but that young white hipsters and techbros on whom the zillies rely to buy flipped houses and small lot subdivision units, to fill their luxury apartments, to patronize the painfully edgy establishments that attract more and more of their kind, not only can be trusted with alcohol, but virtually thrive on it, is an important component in the gentrification toolkit.

The truth, of course, is not that they don’t cause trouble when drinking, but that the trouble they cause isn’t perceived as such. The alcohol/gentrification cocktail is an issue across the City, even the country, e.g. from Westlake to Boyle Heights all the way to Brooklyn, where an overconcentration of bars in general, and of specifically gentrification-themed bars in particular, are easily understood to be part of the zillionaire recolonization agenda.

And as the Los Angeles Times famously observed of Highland Park in 2014, “[i]n the endless debate over gentrification in Los Angeles, [it’s] ground zero,” so it’s not surprising to find the same disputes, the same tensions reproduced there. According to KPCC Highland Park comprises four square miles and had, in 2016, 60 liquor licenses, 20 of which were issued between 2013 and 2016. And this is an abnormally high number. There are pretty many more licenses in Highland Park than are allowed by standard measures used by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

That doesn’t mean that they won’t issue new licenses, though. It just means that new licenses are subject to a more rigorous vetting process, which must include a showing that there are good reasons for the overconcentration, that the new license will “serve a public convenience and necessity,” and that it won’t contribute to or create new alcohol-related problems in the area. This is all laid out in Chapter 6, Article 1 of the California Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.

In order to begin to understand how this process plays out in Highland Park, I recently obtained detailed application information for six of these new licenses, at Cafe Birdie, Kitchen Mouse, The Lodge Room, The Greyhound, The Gold Line Bar, and Highland Park Bowl. And it turns out that, in an astonishing display of circular reasoning, the fact that the area is gentrifying is in itself evidence that additional licenses granted to gentrification bars are both desirable and necessary.

The applicants don’t call the process gentrification, by the way. They call it revitalization, which term, in a stunning act of passive erasure, assumes that Highland Park wasn’t plenty vital before they showed up. Turn the page for links to and transcribed selections from some of the applicants’ arguments.
Continue reading When A Neighborhood Has More Liquor Licenses Than Are Ordinarily Allowed It’s Still Possible To Get New Licenses — It’s Just Necessary To Give Reasons Why The New Licenses Will “serve a public convenience and necessity” — And It Turns Out That The Alcoholic Beverage Control Department Accepts Gentrification — Which In This Context Is Called “Revitalization” Or “Resurgence” — As A Reason — Not To Mention The Fact That Already Vital Neighborhoods Can’t “Revitalize” — Unless Of Course The Wrong Kinds Of Vitalizers Are Ignored →

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California State Government, CD13

The Hollywood Forever Cemetery Violated Alcohol Laws Or Regulations For Years While Will Salao Was Running The LA Metro Office — And Then Gerry Sanchez Took Over In 2017 After Will Salao Was Arrested For Corruption And Tried To Restore Compliance — And Marisol Rodriguez From CD13 And Julie Nony From The LAPD Attacked Him And Snitched To Kevin DeLeon On Him — And Gerry Sanchez Just Caved Under Pressure — Said He Would “Eat Shit And Walk It Back” — Didn’t He Take An Oath To Uphold The Freaking Law??

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NOTE: The records discussed in this post tell an interesting story. But the story of how I got my hands on these records is also interesting, and you can read it here.

If you’ve spent much time in Hollywood you’ve noticed the wildly popular movie screenings at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. They’re sponsored by Cinespia and have been going on since 2002. These events have been the subject of sycophantic only-in-Los-Angeles style coverage in local news outlets since forever. E.g. in 2015 the L.A. Times explained:

As the smell of popcorn and weed wafted through the air, DJ Ana Calderon spun “Sweet Caroline” and smiling hipsters lined up to snap shots in a candy-festooned photo booth that had been designed by pop artist Alia Penner…

Or the L.A. Weekly:

There’s even a cute deejay girl spinning a pitch-perfect assortment of swinging 1960s classics while 4,000 moviegoers trickle their way into the “theater,” picnic baskets, blankets and beach chairs in tow.

“Want some, Dani?” asks the cool mom to my left, extending a plastic cup filled with red wine my way.

Bring your own weed! Bring your own wine! Cute deejay girl! Cool mom! Famous dead people! You can even buy drinks from the bar! What could be more pleasant on a beautiful summer’s night in Los Angeles?! Who could ask for anything more??!

Well, evidently the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control could ask for anything more. Remember Will Salao? Ultracorrupt former ABC district manager, indicted by the feds for bribery and abuse of authority and probably a federal snitch? It seems that for years Will Salao pointedly did not worry about any problems with the drunk movies at the cemetery.

But his 2017 replacement, putatively new broom and special agent in charge Gerry Sanchez, immediately noticed something funny about these events at the Cemetery that evidently had been just fine with bribe-accepting Will Salao. They were breaking the damn law by letting people bring booze in, or at least Gerry Sanchez thought they were breaking the law, or maybe it was a regulation. No one ever seems to have identified the specific law they were breaking. And he did what seems to be his job and told them that it was against the law for people to bring their own alcohol in to the movie screenings and they would have to stop.

And you can guess what happened next, right? The cemetery bitched and moaned and complained to their elected representatives and so forth but then the LAPD and the City government stepped up in favor of everyone following the damn law! We’ve seen how diligent they were in conspiring against nightclubs on Hollywood Blvd, for instance, with LAPD, CD13, and City Planning teaming up to get them all shut down on the basis of obsessively compiled lists of violations. So why wouldn’t they defend the law in this instance as well? You remember the law, don’t you? It’s that thing we’re all equal under.

Actually, nope. It seems that when you’ve got 4,000 palefaced happy hipsters swilling wine and smoking weed on the lawn things work very, very differently from situations with a different color scheme. In this case, rather than spending years trying to shut down the putative violators with every creepy cop trick known to the power elite, CD13’s Marisol Rodriguez, the LAPD’s Julie Nony, and Baydsar Thomasian of Kevin DeLeon’s office basically swarmed special agent in charge Gerry Sanchez and yelled at him until he gave up and decided to let the cemetery continue breaking the law. That is, if there even was a law broken.

And then, because the guy’s no hero, he spent the next few days whining about it to his superiors instead of honoring the oath he took to defend the law. Or instead of realizing that no law had been broken and owning up to that. Either way, the guy’s a loser, but then we already knew that. Turn the page, of course, for every last detailed piece of this no-heroes-involved story, told, as usual, by means of transcribed emails.
Continue reading The Hollywood Forever Cemetery Violated Alcohol Laws Or Regulations For Years While Will Salao Was Running The LA Metro Office — And Then Gerry Sanchez Took Over In 2017 After Will Salao Was Arrested For Corruption And Tried To Restore Compliance — And Marisol Rodriguez From CD13 And Julie Nony From The LAPD Attacked Him And Snitched To Kevin DeLeon On Him — And Gerry Sanchez Just Caved Under Pressure — Said He Would “Eat Shit And Walk It Back” — Didn’t He Take An Oath To Uphold The Freaking Law?? →

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Public Records Act Pragmatics

This Is What Feral Bureaucracy Looks Like — My Epic Journey To The Dept Of Alcoholic Beverage Control To Inspect Records — How I Got Illegally Asked For ID — How I Got Menaced By Gun-Carrying Super Special Agent In Charge Gerry Sanchez — Who By The Way Is A Liar — How I Got Told To Show Some Respect — How ABC Tried To Extort Me Into Paying For Copies — How They Paid Secondary Special Sub-Agent In Charge Maggie Phillips $114.48 To Watch Me Photograph Four Dollars Worth Of Records With My Phone

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Good day, friends, and welcome to the backstory of a post I have not written yet. You see, on Thursday6 I rode various buses and trains up to 888 S. Figueroa Street to visit the office of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for the limited purpose of inspecting some records. Here before you is the story of the inspection, and although I will certainly be writing the story told by the records themselves, today is not the day for that. You can look at them here on Archive.Org, though, and they are certainly worth your time.

It all started on October 26 when I emailed PublicRecords@abc.ca.gov with my request. On November 14, an amazingly prompt 18 days later, Stephanie Eastwood (stephanie.eastwood@abc.ca.gov), who is some kind of ABC CPRA specialist, told me that there were 152 pages of responsive records and that I had to go to an ABC office to look at them. It may be worth looking at her email, if only to note that she doesn’t sign her last name, a fact which will become interesting later in the story.

I told her that LA Metro was closest and that I would need to use my scanner. I also pointed out that they could just give me exported electronic copies for free, which is required by the CPRA.7 Then she ignored me for a couple weeks8 and, when she responded, her email contained the remarkable claim that ABC’s email system was so old that it “does not use electronic files.” She also told me that according to most high and mighty special agent in charge Gerry Sanchez, there was no “secure area” at LA Metro to use my scanner but that if I went to the Long Beach office I could scan.

However, Long Beach is too far from me, both geographically and emotionally, so I told her LA Metro was best and I would just take pix with my phone. Then she said OK, I could come in on December 4.9 I told her that I couldn’t, that I had to work, and that I would be in on December 6 at 10 a.m. and could she confirm? Note that the CPRA explicitly states that records must be available during office hours for inspection.10

After more nudging, Stephanie Eastwood finally got back to me on December 4, informing me that I couldn’t come in on December 6 because ABC-agent-to-the-stars in charge Gerry Sanchez wasn’t available and I would have to come in on December 13 instead.11 I told her12 that I had to work on the 13th. I also pointed out, again, that the law required records to be available during office hours, not at the random convenience of SSAC Gerry Sanchez, superstar.13 It only took her five hours to concede to that one,14 which is how I found myself at the ABC LA Metro office at 10 a.m. on Thursday. And here my troubles began.
Continue reading This Is What Feral Bureaucracy Looks Like — My Epic Journey To The Dept Of Alcoholic Beverage Control To Inspect Records — How I Got Illegally Asked For ID — How I Got Menaced By Gun-Carrying Super Special Agent In Charge Gerry Sanchez — Who By The Way Is A Liar — How I Got Told To Show Some Respect — How ABC Tried To Extort Me Into Paying For Copies — How They Paid Secondary Special Sub-Agent In Charge Maggie Phillips $114.48 To Watch Me Photograph Four Dollars Worth Of Records With My Phone →

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Hypocrisy, Miscellaneous

Will Salao Pleads Guilty To Bribery And Corruption Charges — His Plea Deal Was Evidently Signed In September 2018 And Filed Under Seal — It Is Still Under Seal — Evidently This Makes It Likely That He Snitched Out His Codefendant Scott Seo — Who Also Pled Guilty Today — And Whose Plea Deal Was Signed On November 20 — Not Under Seal — Photography Is Forbidden In Federal Court — But MK.Org’s Own Courtroom Artist Takes Care Of Business!

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Will Salao, corrupt and discredited and federally indicted former ABC agent, this morning in federal court before judge John Kronstadt changed his plea to guilty as he was scheduled to do. During the procedure it came out that Salao’s plea agreement with the government was filed under seal on September 19, 2018. This is big news because the indictment, also under seal at first, wasn’t filed until September 21, 2018. It sure looks like the indictment must have been based on Salao’s cooperation, does it not?

This theory is consistent with the fact that Salao changed his plea to guilty directly after his coconspirator Scott Seo, who also pled guilty this morning, signed a plea agreement on November 20, 2018. This agreement is not under seal and you can get a copy here if you are interested. Even though Salao’s plea agreement is still sealed, some facts about it came out in the hearing. For instance, he will be ordered to pay no more than $23,400 in restitution. By contrast Seo agreed to pay approximately $88,400.
Continue reading Will Salao Pleads Guilty To Bribery And Corruption Charges — His Plea Deal Was Evidently Signed In September 2018 And Filed Under Seal — It Is Still Under Seal — Evidently This Makes It Likely That He Snitched Out His Codefendant Scott Seo — Who Also Pled Guilty Today — And Whose Plea Deal Was Signed On November 20 — Not Under Seal — Photography Is Forbidden In Federal Court — But MK.Org’s Own Courtroom Artist Takes Care Of Business! →

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Hypocrisy, Miscellaneous

Is Will Salao Planning To Change His Plea To “Guilty”? — Something Is Happening But We Don’t Know What It Is — Hearing Scheduled For Thursday, November 29, At 8:30 A.M.

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This is just a very short note to announce that mere moments ago a text-only scheduling notice hit PACER which suggests the possibility that ultra-corrupt former ABC agent Will Salao may be changing his plea. You will recall that he was indicted under seal in September and possibly also that he pled not guilty to all charges last month. But as I said, just after 7 p.m. this evening, the following note showed up on PACER:

(IN CHAMBERS) ORDER SETTING CHANGE OF PLEA HEARING RE DEFENDANT WILBUR M. SALAO (2) by Judge John A. Kronstadt: Pursuant to the request of the parties, the Court sets a hearing regarding Defendant’s change of plea for November 29, 2018 at 8:30 a.m. THERE IS NO PDF DOCUMENT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS ENTRY. (ake) TEXT ONLY ENTRY

I don’t know what it means, but doubtless it means something. Turn the page for courtroom information.
Continue reading Is Will Salao Planning To Change His Plea To “Guilty”? — Something Is Happening But We Don’t Know What It Is — Hearing Scheduled For Thursday, November 29, At 8:30 A.M. →

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Hypocrisy, Miscellaneous

Will Salao, Former ABC Honcho And Member Of The Racist BID-Inspired CD13-Managed Hollywood Nightclub Task Force, Indicted By The Feds For Shocking Corruption Including Taking Bribes In Koreatown — The L.A. Times Has The Story But We Have The Lurid Details — Not To Mention Copies Of Many Of The Pleadings

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Remember the utterly and reprehensibly racist nightclub task force convened by CD13’s Daniel Halden for the express purpose of shutting down minority-serving nightclubs on Hollywood Boulevard at the white supremacist whim of Ms. Kerry Morrison? Well, if not, you can read all about it over here. And it’s to be expected that all of the participants in such a morally bankrupt enterprise are themselves morally bankrupt individuals. But nevertheless it’s still surprising when one of them actually gets indicted by the federal government for actual criminal corruption.

And yet that’s just what happened last month to Will Salao, former head of the Los Angeles office of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and former cheerfully enthusiastic member of the Hollywood Nightclub Task Force. Basically the guy teamed up with a former colleague named Scott Seo to take bribes from Koreatown bar owners to overlook violations, warn them that LAPD was going to raid their bars, send them photos of undercover vice officers, and on the other side, to pressure them to sell their bars by hitting them repeatedly with violations.

And all this at the same time, 2015 and 2016, that he was helping Kerry Morrison carry out her puritanical racial cleansing of Hollywood Boulevard. She’s so freaking focused on driving out the darkies that she’ll work with any kind of criminal at all. I really wonder if he was getting paid under the table for that too. After all, he drove bars out of business, and that’s worth money to the competition. Why wouldn’t the competition pay him for it? You can read the primary sources on this whole brouhaha here on Archive.Org.

The L.A Times published a story on Salao’s indictment a couple weeks ago, and it’s really informative and so on, but man, there are a lot of really lurid details that they just didn’t see fit to put in there, and that’s where we come in! I’m collecting all the paper here on Archive.Org. First of all, here’s a copy of the actual indictment.15 And there are endless goodies in there! The words I put in Will Salao’s mouth in the cartoon up top are direct quotes from his off-the-chain text messages to his co-conspirator, and there is a lot more where that came from! And you’ll find transcriptions of the best of it after the break!

Anyway, he seems to be out on $20,000 bail and not allowed to leave the state and to have surrendered his passport. And according to the government in the joint discovery report there is a ton of additional evidence, including video and audio. Probably we’re not going to get to see most of it, but we can always hope! The trial is presently set for December 11, 2018, but the parties have stipulated that none of them will be ready by then, so I imagine it’ll be reset.

And now, what you know you’ve been waiting for! Turn the page for the most amazing selections from the indictment, showing just what kind of fleas Ms. Kerry Morrison has exposed herself to by lying down with dogs such as Will Salao for no better purpose than closing down hip-hop nightclubs on Hollywood Boulevard!
Continue reading Will Salao, Former ABC Honcho And Member Of The Racist BID-Inspired CD13-Managed Hollywood Nightclub Task Force, Indicted By The Feds For Shocking Corruption Including Taking Bribes In Koreatown — The L.A. Times Has The Story But We Have The Lurid Details — Not To Mention Copies Of Many Of The Pleadings →

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