NC rep pushed costly plan for liquor warehouse that favors developer, ABC official says
By Dan Kane and Esther Frances
Updated June 26, 2026 1:50 PM
Last year, North Carolina House Majority Leader Brenden Jones stood on the floor of the chamber and urged his colleagues to amend a bill intended to make building construction more efficient. He asked them to support a public-private partnership option to build a new state distribution warehouse for liquor.
“ABC Chairman Hank Bauer has asked for this,” Jones told his colleagues of his last-minute amendment on June 18, 2025. It passed with one vote against, and shortly after the House voted to pass the bill with a sizable bipartisan majority.
But Bauer, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission chairman since 2021, never asked for the amendment, he now says through a spokesperson. He hadn’t met Jones, let alone talked with him. But what came next raised the stakes.
In a meeting seven weeks later – set up by a lobbyist for a developer that has connections to roughly a half-million dollars in campaign contributions – Jones told Bauer he had to accept that option. Two weeks later, the developer came in to make its pitch.
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https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article316272828.html