Hintze said that a private club in Oda's area — Bogey's — has, or soon will, be in court over various issues.

Commission spokeswoman Sharon Mackay said top department officials were in training seminars Tuesday and would have no immediate comment on HB344. She said that while there had been complaints against Bogey's in the past, all those issues had been settled "through adjudication" and that the commission was not directly involved in the current lawsuit.

But the issue goes beyond how one private club has been treated, sources said.

Like several other state government regulatory agencies, the liquor commission and its investigatory employees often act like prosecutor, judge and jury. There are seven liquor compliance officers that work for ABC (along with dozens of liquor agents who are housed in the separate Department of Public Safety) who investigate liquor violations, from serving alcohol to minors to dozens of other possible violations of liquor law and rule.

Those disciplinary issues are brought before the liquor commission, who can hand out any number of sanctions.

But if that system is inherently unfair, then similar systems in the Tax Commission, Department of Commerce and other state agencies also have both investigatory and compliance processes.

"We are concerned about any unintended consequences" to other state departments' regulatory processes, Roskelley said.

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