2026-06-04 Liquor Commission Minutes Kona

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question is going but that kind of delves into the realm of, are we sanctioning gambling itself, which we always tell the applicants, or we used to explicitly say this, that we are not saying gambling in Hawaii is legal. Like, if you need that determination, you have to go talk to the Police or the Prosecutor's office. So, in this case, because there's no real money involved, and then there may be prizes at the event or a contest that's either given. One way we've seen it done is you turn in all your fake poker chips, and the one that has the most poker chips gets more tickets for the raffle drawing to get a swag prize or something, right? Your question is whether a gift certificate crosses that line of it being real money, right? It's not cash but I don't know, we could follow up with our Corporation Counsel to see, or even the Prosecutor's office to see if there's an issue with that. Morifuji: Okay. Gonzalez: Does that sound good? Morifuji: That sounds good. Okabe: Because even though the County for Park and Recreation, they have a casino night, that's basically the same thing, but I think it's the same. Gonzalez: Yeah, but our thing is because it's a liquor rule about no gambling in the licensed premises, and that's why I go back to our rule specifically prohibits real money being involved, and so that's a very good question. Morifuji: I thought our rule defined it as items of value, and that's why swag was permitted, and I think my layman's definition is games of skill is not considered gambling. For golfing, you hit a golf ball, you sink it in the hole, you can win an entire car. But casino games are games of chance, and any prize associated with that would meet the definition of gambling, that's my layman's definition. Taniguchi: If I can interject too, we had that same question come up at another fundraiser and former Prosecutor Iboshi mentioned to us that we can't use the word raffle because that's considered gambling, but then a game of skill. So, what it is, let's say for instance, if you answer this particular question correctly then you can participate in whatever this thing is, you know. It's kind of petty but to get around that raffle thing or gambling thing, you know. Morifuji: And just to remind the other Commissioners, I'm not being trying to be petty, just want to make sure that we all abide by the laws. Taniguchi: No, yeah, that's a good question, but that was one thing that we had to do, don't use the word raffle, you gotta come up with something that you have to do MINUTES - LIQUOR COMMISSION MEETING - THURSDAY, JUNE 41 2026 - KONA PAGE 21 OF 27