Our company is a little different these days. We had a team change and pivoted to a more professional customer segment (and from events to venues.) I thought this would be an entertaining story to share with HN from a scrappier time, though :)
Not really an excuse in my opinion, no good can come from posting something like this. Granted we all make dumb mistakes at some point, but very few are felonious, and even fewer try to use it as a marketing avenue.
Yeah, I don't want to do business with someone who is indifferent to their legal responsibilities. I've run raves and stuff like that without a permit, but I was on site at all times to supervise what was going on (along with partners), and we bent over backwards to make sure we were providing a safe environment.
What you did was really irresponsible. by your own admission, you rebottled the cheapest vodka you could find. What if you had unknowingly handled a contaminated batch, and someone was injured as a result of consuming it? How would they go about tracing it back to the source? An unlikely event, to be sure, but alcohol is heavily regulated precisely because there are so many incentives for bad actors to pull a fast one on the public.