HONOLULU -- The city Ethics Commission has ruled that liquor commissioners and their staff violated ethics laws when the commissioners accepted thousands of dollars worth of gifts from people they regulate.

The Liquor Commission has already come under criminal investigation in 2002 when half of its liquor inspectors were indicted by a federal grand jury for taking bribes.

This ethics decision has to do with gifts liquor commission staff received at a conference three years ago. The conference happened in the fall of 2000 at the Kahala Mandarin Hotel.

The investigation found liquor commissioners and staff from all islands accepted $9,000 worth of food, drinks and gifts from companies they regulate. Those gifts covered about one-third the cost of the annual conference and were donated by hotels along with liquor wholesalers and retailers.

"This was not criminal activity, but it still undermines the trust of the public," city Ethics Commission head Chuck Totto said.

Totto said nine of the companies that donated gifts and services all had matters pending before the Liquor Commission at the time.

"These people are the regulators. I mean, they grant licenses to these people and they can revoke them and they can put conditions on them and so on," Totto said.

He said the gifts at the conference appeared to give some people an unfair advantage.

"Also, if you were, let's say, a liquor retailer who didn't donate any money, you might think, 'Well, I'm not in the loop. Maybe I need to donate at some point,'" Totto said.

Liquor Commission Chairman John Spierling refused comment, referring KITV's calls to Liquor Control Administrator Wally Weatherwax.

"The commission will comply with this new standard," Weatherwax said.

However, Weatherwax said he doesn't feel that the "gifts were big enough to influence" their official behavior.

The ethics commission did not recommend any discipline in this case because it found the gifts were of "small value," and the Liquor Commission was following a decades-old tradition of getting freebies from the people it regulates.

Weatherwax said their annual conference fees have increased because they can't get gifts to offset their costs anymore. Oahu is hosting the conference again later this year and city Liquor Commission employees will not plan the conference's social events or solicit gifts this time, officials said.