Frat house or state house? Social media post accuses NC lawmakers of drunken behavior

A social media post accuses unnamed North Carolina lawmakers of drunk and disorderly behavior at a bourbon-tasting event in Kentucky.

The scene was described Saturday in a post on Reddit by a person who says they work at a bourbon distillery in the Louisville area. The distillery was the site of a private tasting event Friday night for a tour bus full of North Carolina lawmakers and lobbyists.

According to the anonymous poster, some in the group of about 30 people appeared to be inebriated from drinking prior to arriving at the distillery. They were on a “Bourbon Trail tour,” visiting several tasting rooms, according to the poster.

"Despite being extremely rude, disruptive, not tipping the bartender and tour guides, and even vomiting in our bathroom sinks, not a single apology was offered,” the post said, describing the scene as “appalling.”

WRAL News communicated with the person who posted the account. The employee, who declined to share their name or the name of the distillery, said they wanted North Carolinians to know how their elected leaders had behaved.

"I’d love to see government officials represent their states with dignity and class, not as rude drunkards who literally expect hourly workers to clean up their puke," they said in the post.

The poster was able to identify to WRAL News some people from photos, and supplied a list of names of some others they believe were at the event.

WRAL News reached out to more than a dozen of those people Monday — lawmakers and lobbyists — to ask if they were at the event. Almost no one responded, either to confirm or to deny.

The only response was from state Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, a member of House leadership who often sponsors alcohol bills. He said he was not at any event like the one described in the post.

But Saine didn’t respond to a direct follow-up question about whether he had been in Kentucky tasting bourbon in the past few days.

One person identified by the poster is the finance director for the state Republican party. North Carolina Republican Party GOP spokesman Matt Mercer said it was not a state GOP event.

He referred WRAL News to the group that is believed to have hosted the bourbon tasting tour, a free-market political nonprofit organization called Greater Carolina.

A spokesman for Greater Carolina didn’t respond to a request for comment.