2019-03-07 Liquor Commission Minutes

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VII. Unfinished Business (10:15 A.M.) Greenwell: Big Island Distillers Inc., dba Big Island Distillers, pursuant to Rule 4-2-M of the Rules and Regulations of the Liquor Commission of the Department of Liquor Control of the County of Hawaii, State of Hawaii, requests approval to extend the time issuance of its Small Craft Producer Pub liquor license, Category A, for an additional six months from January 4, 2019, to and including July 4, 20199 by email dated January 11, 2019. This item was on the February 7, 2019, agenda under New Business. The matter was deferred to March 7, 2019, in order to have the applicant present and to hear the recommendation of the Department. Greenwell: The applicant is being called forward. Please identify yourself and your relationship to the business. Puckett: I'm Dave Puckett, owner of Big Island Distillers Incorporated and I'm here to start my discussion off by apologizing for not asking for the extension. I was a little confused about the dates. I did call one time in November to try and get an update and the Building Department took a long time to ok my blueprints. That's why it's been this long and since then, I've gotten the blueprints and I've passed three of the preliminary inspections so far. I'm moving forward with the construction of the one wall in the space that took ten months for the Building Department to ok. Greenwell: At this time I'd like to ask Gerald to interject. Takase: Yes, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, the Department tries to work with all of our applicants and Mr. Puckett has been here for a while and waiting. In his case, believe he applied with Building (Department) in May. Puckett: Yes, May was the first set of prints to the Planning Department that took a month. In June the Building Department got the permits. The first review was sent out on the 15th of June, I'm sorry, that's when they got to Building. Seven fifteen (July 15) was the first review by the Fire Marshal. Seven eighteen (July 18), the second review was completed by the Building Department. Three months later still no contact from the Fire Department on this second review. It just took a long time for them to get the blueprints. They work on Fire Department hours and the Building Department works on general office hours and once one Fire Marshal gets a set of blueprints, nobody else can comment, explain or anything else to my disbelief that they don't act as one department. So I could never find the Fire Marshal that was in charge of my review. We tried daily to find him down here at the Building Department and finally he responded to an email and then we were able to kind of move forward with it. He was very vague in his comments as to what I needed to. do and I had to, just short of purchasing an NFPA manual for a few hundred dollars, I had to delve into it myself to figure out what codes he was talking about. All he wanted was a monitored fire alarm system and an access box on the outside, but he couldn't just say that in plain letters. Takase: I don't know what has happened. Fire Inspectors have moved to an evening schedule. Somehow it's not meshing well with the rest of the approval process, but Mr. Puckett MARCH 7, 2019 -- LIQUOR COMMISSION MINUTES 10