Chairman Hank Bauer , Jeff Strickland , Public Affairs Director .
ENHANCING OPERATIONS The NC ABC system is uniquely organized . Based in Raleigh and housed within the North Carolina Department of Public Safety ( with a direct reporting line to the Governor ’ s office ), the Commission regulates the sale , purchase , transportation , manufacture , consumption and possession of all alcoholic beverages across the state . North Carolina also has 171 boards that operate independently from the agency . These boards own the ABC stores and directly manage retail operations . The local ABC boards order products from the state warehouse , which operates on a bailment system . Suppliers own the products while they are located within the warehouse , until they ’ re ordered by a local ABC board . Each ABC board determines what products ( and how many ) to order for their stores .
When Bauer joined the Commission , he was faced with several pressing issues — the most immediate being severe difficulty obtaining products . This was partially due to pandemic-related shortages but was also related to warehousing and distribution inefficiencies . In just over a year ’ s time , product inventory in the agency ’ s warehouse has more than doubled .
“ I made it a priority to meet with our brokers and suppliers right away , and then on an ongoing basis to make sure we had an effective working relationship with them ,” Bauer says . “ I also visited or called every one of our state boards , which was challenging given the large number of them , but I wanted to make sure to connect with them and let them know that the Commission is always here as a resource and partner .”
Building relationships resulted in immediate improvements to the state ’ s product inventory . It also helped improve the Commission ’ s ability to obtain highly allocated , popular products , such as bourbon , which has been rising in demand across the state .
Despite those early wins , Bauer realized that a long-term solution was needed .
The Commission ’ s current warehouse was built in 1984 and lacks a conveyor system and other modern technology , resulting in inefficiencies that are much lower than industry standards . Soon after joining the NC ABC Commission , Bauer embarked on a series of meetings with local commercial real estate developers to formulate plans to build a new 425,000-square-foot , state-of-the-art warehouse , equipped with a full conveyor system and other features designed to drastically improve operational efficiencies .
StateWays | www . stateways . com | Spring 2023 17