Officers' second jobs questioned | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

On Friday, County Executive John R. Leopold and County Council Chairman Cathy Vitalie, R-Severna Park, sent a letter to the county Ethics Commission requesting an exemption from a policy that would prohibit police officers from holding secondary jobs in any business at which alcohol is served.

It's not the first time the question has been before the ethics commission, and earlier the commission balked at relaxing its rules to allow the moonlighting practice.

The debate about officers' secondary employment has been going on for more than a year, when the Fraternal Order of Police, representing one police officer, took the department to task for discontinuing the practice of allowing officers to work at businesses at which alcohol was served. The argument was officers would face a conflict of interest since they typically patrol such establishments.

After the county Ethics Commission argued strongly against relaxing county ethics rules, the County Council and Mr. Leopold passed legislation to allow the officers to work in those jobs. But state law requires any ethics changes at the county level be reviewed by the state.

At the end of last week, Mr. Leopold received word from the state that in order to make the change, the county will have to ask the county Ethics Commission - the same group who called secondary employment a "conflict of interest" last year in a written opinion - for an exemption for police officers.

"It's my hope, which is shared by the council, that we can secure support from the county Ethics Commission to grant us the exception," Mr. Leopold said.

Last year, the county Ethics Commission issued an opinion that strongly argued against secondary employment.

"To put it more bluntly, police should not be paid directly by the businesses they are supposed to be policing," the commissioners wrote in a 14-page document. "It is the very reason there are conflict-of-interest and secondary-employment restrictions for all county employees."

O'Brien Atkinson, president of the county's Fraternal Order of Police, said the "conflict of interest" is nonexistent.

Basically, the argument is that if an officer is employed by a restaurant that breaks a law, like serving alcohol to a person younger than 21, that the officer will be torn between enforcing a law and the fear that he might lose his restaurant job if he blows the whistle on the crime.

Cpl. Atkinson doesn't think this would be a problem, and that the advantages to having a police officer on site at an establishment serving alcohol would actually prevent problems. Restaurant owners would be less likely to bend laws with a police officer in their presence, and also patrons would think twice before drinking irresponsibly, he said.

Mr. Leopold and the state Ethics Commission in its opinion said prohibiting officers to take second jobs could hurt recruiting and retention efforts.

"Hiring, recruitment and retention of police is competitive," Mr. Leopold said. "I want to retain and recruit officers for Anne Arundel County."

Cpl. Atkinson agreed.

"I think that when it comes to recruitment, these young applicants are looking at everything …" he said. "If they can work secondary jobs in Prince George's County, and not in Anne Arundel, that's certainly going to be a big consideration."

For some police officers, the extra money is very much needed, in some cases in order to afford to live in the county, Cpl. Atkinson said.

Additionally, officers help contain crime in the areas in which they are employed, he added.

"It puts more officers where police officers are needed most," he said. "If you remove that, not only are you hurting officers that lose out on that employment, but you're also hurting the public safety of Anne Arundel County," he said, adding that more police officers will be needed to patrol areas and more calls for service will come out for those areas, since officers will not already be there.

If the ethics commission does not grant the exemption, both men said a lawsuit challenging the policy will be imminent.

Cpl. Atkinson noted the prior lawsuit, which was withdrawn when officers were allowed to pick up their second shift again. That lawsuit would be re-filed if the exception is not granted, he said.

"Hopefully it won't come to that," he said.