By edward oser
News Reporter
The Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s director resigned Wednesday after a Portland police officer arrested her on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol Saturday night. A breath test showed Teresa L. Kaiser had twice the legal limit of alcohol in her blood, police said.
Kaiser crashed her car on Portland’s Sellwood Bridge on Saturday night, according to a police report. Her car emitted “a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage.”
According to the police report, Kaiser admitted to having two glasses of wine over a five-hour period. After a breath test, police determined her blood alcohol content was 0.16 percent.
When her resignation letter was released in the office Thursday morning, spokesman Ken Palke said, everyone was shocked.
“Due to circumstances that I deeply regret, I am resigning as the executive director of the commission,” the letter read. “I’ll return on May 15th, 2006, to tie up some loose ends and will say my good-byes at that time.”
“It’s devastating here at the OLCC,” Palkesaid.”We’re very, very sorry that this occurred here.”
The OLCC distributes distilled spirits to liquor stores and enforces the state liquor laws, Palke said. In 2005, OLCC liquor inspectors, who often work alongside police, issued 475 criminal citations, mostly for minors in possession of alcohol and furnishing alcohol to minors, Palke said. The commission issued 147 MIPs, 91 tickets for using fake identification and 22 for using another person’s license.
OLCC inspectors also issued 83 tickets to license holders, mostly for licensees failing to verify patrons’ ages.
Kaiser, a lawyer, joined the OLCC in September 2003 after enforcing child support laws in Maryland and liquor laws in Colorado and Washington, Palke said. Kaiser was also an OLCC inspector in the early 1980s.
Palke has spent the past three years working down the hall from Kaiser and he described her as “driven” and “a very capable attorney.”
Palke said the commission will select her successor at 10 a.m. today.
“We will keep up the good work,” Palke said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report