Rosen to Head Liquor Authority
August 7, 2009

Led investigation into price schemes

By Tom Precious

NEWS ALBANY BUREAU

Updated: August 07, 2009, 6:22 AM / 0 comments

ALBANY — A longtime state lawyer whose investigation recovered millions of dollars in fines from the liquor industry for an illegal buying scheme was unanimously confirmed Thursday by the State Senate as the new chairman of the State Liquor Authority.

Dennis Rosen, an Orchard Park resident, will head the agency that issues liquor licenses and enforces compliance with the state’s alcoholic beverage control laws at more than 60,000 bars, restaurants and liquor stores.

He will be paid $120,800 a year. Rosen joined the attorney general’s office in 1982 and served under five attorneys general — from Robert Abrams to Andrew Cuomo.

Rosen, 61, has handled numerous civil and criminal prosecutions, many dealing with consumer fraud, including an investigation into a phony pay phone business in which he recovered more than $6 million for 400 defrauded New York State residents.

In a 15-month case beginning in 2005, Rosen headed the investigation of the state’s liquor industry pricing schemes that led to unfair competition and pay-to-play favoritism deals for some liquor stores. The case began following a Buffalo News investigation earlier in the year.

The Harvard Law School graduate also will have to deal with internal issues within the agency that was created in 1934; the state has been investigating allegations of payoffs to SLA workers for quick turnarounds for liquor license applicants.

Rosen will have his hands full in the new job, lawmakers said.

Sen. Dale Volker, R-Depew, called on the state to hire more SLA investigators to cut down on the long backlog of liquor license applications — a delay that he said can lead to corruption by applicants looking to speed up their approvals.

“When things are so delayed, certain things happen,” Volker said on the Senate floor.

“All of us want him to do the best job imaginable,” added Sen. Neil Breslin, an Albanyarea Democrat.

One of Rosen’s early cases came in 1994 when, as an assistant attorney general, he negotiated a deal to pay back 317 Buffalo Bills fans who bought Super Bowl packages for the game that year in Atlanta — only to find out the packages did not include game tickets.

Rosen was confirmed during a one-day special session by the Senate, which came back to town to enact a bill continuing mayoral control of the New York City school system by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In the 1970s Rosen worked in the juvenile rights and then criminal defense offices of the New York City Legal Aid Society.