State’s first female deputy enforcement, licensing chief
Meet Danielle Ellston, the new deputy chief and deputy director of the New Hampshire Liquor Commission’s Division of Enforcement and Licensing, and the first woman to assume the role.
What does your job as deputy chief and deputy director entail?
Within the Division of Enforcement and Licensing, we have field operations, which [consist of] all of our sworn police officers — their official title is ‘investigators’ — who provide our regulatory function throughout the state, [with] a primary mission of preventing youth access to alcohol and tobacco. We also have our administrative services, which includes our licensing, help desk, auditing and direct shipping units, as well as our training units, which provide training to our licensees and our store employees. I’m second in command to the chief, who runs the whole operation. I’m kind of the middleman; I’m a support for the chief … and I also oversee some of the day-to-day operations of the division, making sure that we’re staying on track with our mission to ensure that we’re complying with our policies, rules and regulations.
What is your background in this kind of work?
I have a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Endicott College. I was hired right out of school by Liquor Enforcement in September 2008. … In January 2009, I received my police certification from the New Hampshire Police Academy, representing the [liquor] division at the academy. I’ve been here [in New Hampshire] for my entire adult career, and that’s something that’s important to me. … There’s a lot that has happened in the amount of time I’ve been here. It’s really cool that I got to see and be a part of the agency’s development and progression.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’re up against?
It’s very tough for the licensees right now. They were just getting their footing back from everything that happened during Covid. At the end of last year and even last summer, we saw people out and about, feeling comfortable going to public places again. Now, with some of the inflation issues … people are going out less and spending less money … and the industry is starting to feel the impact of that. The industry is also still dealing with staffing issues. Covid created a lot of job opportunities for people to work remotely, which is good, but the industry is feeling the impact of people … moving on to different jobs. We feel that on our end, too, because they’re trying to manage more patrons with less staff. The way we combat that is through our educational platform; education … is a primary function of our investigators. They’re out there educating these licensees, giving them ways to run their business with less staff and ways to be more diligent with checking IDs and over-serving. … We have to look at what’s going on around us and really change the way we [communicate] our goals to the licensees. It’s a partnership where we have to listen to them and hear what their issues are, then educate them on what the best ways to stay in compliance are. It really is a give and take.
What do you hope to accomplish as deputy chief and deputy director, short-term and long-term?
My big goal here is to keep us moving forward and to be progressive … and to really try to streamline everything we do, to work with the industry and to make it a great, very successful relationship. … When I say ‘be progressive,’ it’s [referring to] everything — technology, education, community outreach. How can we make our processes more efficient for the licensees? How can we make our internal procedures more efficient for our employees? … There’s a mentality to say, ‘This is the way we’ve always done things,’ … but there are so many opportunities for us to partner with the industry and our coalition groups to really step forward.
What does being the first woman in this position mean to you?
I’m very honored and grateful. It’s a very cool situation to be in. … Going back to [the idea of] being progressive, we’re seeing … a movement throughout law enforcement of more females getting into the profession. I’m the first female deputy chief, but we have a pretty big group of females working here, and we have some female supervisors. … If I can help show that [women] can be successful in it, then that’s a very cool opportunity.
What do you find rewarding about this work?
The cool thing about our agency is that there are so many people you get to interact with. We’re interacting with licensees who are just trying to have a successful business. We’re interacting with our coalition groups, which have such an outstanding mission they’re trying to achieve, and they like including us in that. We get to work with local law enforcement agencies and help them be successful in establishing their business relationships with their licensees. We get to interact with youth. For me, that’s the best part — getting to interact with all these different people and to really be a part of their mission and bring them in to be a part of our mission.
Featured photo: Danielle Ellston being sworn in. Courtesy photo.