2024-05-02 Liquor Commission Minutes Hilo

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/109:42 AM say do your best, if we can help in anyway, and Director has in the past, given potential licensees direction as to what they can do. But we really got to be careful when we say that kind of stuff, we don't want to discourage people and they close up and go away, you know. Okabe: I don't think our discussion was to say that, I think it was to have the conversation that this Commission can not be a Commission that just rubber stamps every request for extension. So, that is a healthy discussion, not saying that we want to prevent people from getting their business, but we cannot be taking the opposite side of what you're saying too, and just approving everything for that particular justification, so think this discussion is healthy. Taniguchi: Yes, it's a healthy discussion. Wilkinson: So, I have a question. If we were to extend over and over and over again, and say it goes three or four years of extensions, and the law changes in the meantime, does a pending application revert back to the laws it was when they applied? Frenz: Completely depends on the law. Takase: Yes. Wilkinson: But if the law applies to that particular application, then the final approval, they would have to qualify under the new rules? Frenz: It depends on the law. Takase: I'll tell you, the only problem I see with continually extending something is you may get a whole new neighborhood in there, and not so much for retail stores, but if it was a night club at the time they got it. But in time things change, and could they still come in? Yes, as long as we're extending them, they can still come in, but you may have a whole new neighborhood out there that's going to say, " How come we were never informed about this?" Well, it was on the books for 10 years, you know, but that's the kind of stuff we'll watch for and hopefully it will strike a balance to not get stuck in those types of situations. Wilkinson: So, if an applicant were to say, make these required changes, but in the interim, they figure they're going to spend a lot of money to make these changes anyway, lets add a space or change the character of the place that has already been through the process, if it changes in a substantial way, I'm assuming the Department is going to say that this needs to go through the proper process again? Takase: Well, it would kind of depend on how much because the only way it would come back on that kind of scenario is that they would have to change the square footage or do more alterations, other than that, it doesn't really come back to us. MINUTES - LIQUOR COMMISSION MEETING - THURSDAY, MAY 21 2024 - HILO PAGE 23 OF 42