§ 561 — Authority of liquor control investigators; arrest for unlawfully manufacturing, possessing, or transporting alcoholic beverages; seizure of property

(a) The Director of Enforcement for the Division of Liquor Control and investigators employed by the Board of Liquor and Lottery or by the Division of Liquor Control shall be certified as Level III law enforcement officers by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council and shall have the same powers and immunities as those conferred on the State Police by 20 V.S.A. § 1914.
(b) The Commissioner of Liquor and Lottery, the Director of Enforcement for the Division of Liquor Control, an investigator employed by the Board of Liquor and Lottery or by the Division of Liquor Control, or any other law enforcement officer may arrest or take into custody pursuant to the Vermont Rules of Criminal Procedure a person whom he or she finds in the act of manufacturing alcohol or possessing a still or other apparatus for the manufacture of alcohol; unlawfully selling, bartering, possessing, furnishing, or transporting alcohol; or unlawfully selling, furnishing, or transporting alcoholic beverages, and shall seize the alcohol, vessels, and implements of sale and the stills or other apparatus for the manufacture of alcohol in the possession of the person. He or she may also seize and take into custody any property described in this section. (Amended 1959, No. 329 (Adj. Sess.), § 33, eff. March 1, 1961; 1987, No. 201 (Adj. Sess.); 2011, No. 17, § 1, eff. May 11, 2011; 2011, No. 17, § 3, eff. July 1, 2013; 2013, No. 64, §§ 7, 8, eff. June 3, 2013; 2013, No. 141 (Adj. Sess.), § 15, eff. July 1, 2015; 2017, No. 83, § 79; 2018, No. 1 (Sp. Sess.), § 73.)