Esper Announces Partnership with the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission
Esper is proud to announce our latest partnership with the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, our first customer in the state of North Carolina. The NC ABCC is responsible for the regulation of all sales, purchases, manufacturing, and consumption of alcohol in the state, including managing state-run liquor stores where citizens may buy alcohol. Its mission is to enhance public safety in North Carolina communities through the proper sale and consumption of alcohol.
Challenges faced by NC ABCC
The Commission had a single employee working part-time managing all regulations through a manual process. Additionally, a major regulatory review on the horizon promised to be a significant hurdle to overcome with minimal resources and an outdated process.
“Building a new team was an opportunity for ABCC to modernize how we manage our regulatory processes, but there was also the worry about onboarding team members and the administrative overhead of training them on our existing manual process,” said Renee Metz, Assistant General Counsel for NC ABCC. “Not only are we managing our existing regulations, we are updating and creating new rules that correspond with the legislative changes each year.”
Benefits of adopting Esper
Esper provides a single source of truth for all regulation activity, which within the ABCC can mean upwards of 12-18 months worth of work from internal drafting all the way to Rules Review Commission approval. All of this content, as well as feedback from interested parties, is housed in one place that makes it much easier to collaborate and gain insights into regulation status – protecting institutional knowledge in the process.
Tips from an expert on how to get new technology for your agency
Hoping to modernize your agency’s policy management but not sure where to start?
“First, know who the experts are in your agency when it comes to technology procurement,” said Metz. “Be proactive in meeting with them and understanding the options on the table.”
“Second, educate people on the importance of making the regulatory process more efficient. We’re fortunate to have a Chairman who is invested in improving our regulatory environment, but the fact that we have an upcoming regulatory review and building a regulatory team was extra motivation to adopt new technology.”
For more information on Esper’s product and services, reach out to us for a consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Esper’s Regulation & Code Management module is a platform that moves rulemaking and regulatory drafting out of disconnected tools (spreadsheets, emails, shared drives) and into a unified, auditable workflow. It supports collaborative drafting, version control, automated publishing, compliance deadlines, and AI-powered search across your regulations. Esper
Esper is primarily targeted at government agencies (state, local, regulatory bodies) that must manage, publish, and enforce rules, codes, or regulations. It helps modernize the regulatory process in a transparent, auditable fashion.
Some of the core features include:
- Collaborative drafting with versioning and redlines
- Workflow and approval routing (assign owners, set deadlines, send reminders)
- Automated publishing in appropriate formats
- AI-enabled search to quickly find portions of regulations with citation support
- Task management and visibility into bottlenecks
Esper maintains all drafts, redlines, and versions within a single system. That ensures every change is tracked, auditable, and tied to the appropriate approval steps, so stakeholders can always see “who changed what when.”
Every rulemaking task (e.g. drafting, review, public comment, approval) is assigned an owner and due date. The system sends reminders, tracks overdue items, and makes bottlenecks visible so leadership can intervene.
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