2017-12-07 Liquor Adjudication Board Minutes

Home

Takase: As a Department, we hadn't done compliance checks for a couple of years because once we did it, approximately two years ago, we had a pretty good percentage of compliance so we gave them a break. We let off with just doing a check. Instead of fining everybody, we brought all of them in to tell them we had done it. But, we started again. Fuke: Educated? Takase: Yes. I think there was about thirteen out of seventy. Not a bad percentage, but brought either the managers or the owners in and talked about the situation. They were given a warning and they might be a little (axed. Overall, the Licensees did pretty well. This was on the Hilo and Kona sides. I informed them that we would follow up and check again and unfortunately, Mr. Nguyen was caught in this one. We gave them one chance and this is the second one so we had to move forward and really, it was just one in Hilo and one in Kona. We had pretty good compliance. Fuke: In terms of when the actual violation occurs, does there have to be a monetary exchange? With the first one, there was actually the ringing of the cash register and change was given. In this particular situation when you entered (the store), it didn't give the impression that there was monetary exchange, but the beer was on the counter. The follow up report indicates that there was a receipt. Gonzalez: Correct. He rung them up. The definition for liquor to a minor is rather broad. It's "sell, serve or furnish." And at that point he had told them and he had his hand out indicating how much was owed. From our perspective we intervened at that point to eliminate them having to go back into the register and return the money. If we were involved with the Police Department (like) in the Hilo case, they let the whole transaction go through. But we've had certain transactions occur where we couldn't stop before that happened. That's why we stopped it at that point because we felt it progressed enough. That's why he had the receipt, because it was showing on the register that he had already rung him up. Giffin: He had already chalked it up? Gonzalez: Yes. Smith: Just so I understand this, your employer has made the decision that whatever we vote on and approve, it's going to be a personal payment made by you. Is that accurate? Gonzalez: From what Mr. Nguyen has indicated to me, he has been fined $1000 by his employer. Smith: One of the goals that we have as an adjudication board is to insure compliance. I'm assuming, like with the previous Licensee, when you try to insure corrective behavior, if you make it meaningful by exacting some kind of remedy that's meaningful to the employee, I'm assuming something like this is going to impact you and it's meaningful to you. And then you're going to tell all your co-workers what happened and they're going to understand that your employer is serious and trying to enforce these rules. I would tend to think that would help to get the message to everybody that these are the rules we all DECEMBER 7, 2017 - LIQUOR ADJUDICATION BOARD MINUTES 13