§281-59 Hearing. Upon the day of hearing, or any adjournment thereof, the liquor commission shall consider the application and any protests and objections to the granting thereof, and hear the parties in interest, and shall within fifteen days thereafter give its decision granting or refusing the application; provided that if a majority of the registered voters for the area within five hundred feet of the nearest point of the premises for which the license is asked or a majority of the owners and lessees of record of real estate and owners of record of shares in a cooperative apartment within five hundred feet of the nearest point of the premises for which the license is asked have duly filed or caused to be filed their protests against the granting of the license, or if there appears any other disqualification under this chapter, the application shall be refused. Otherwise the commission may in its discretion grant or refuse the same. The commission may also, with like discretion, grant a license to one person in preference to another, without reference to any priority in the order of filing of the applications; and may of its own motion, or on the suggestion of any member, or of the investigator take notice of any matter or thing which in the opinion of a majority of its members would be a sufficient objection to the granting of a license; but in such case if the objection is one to which the applicant should be given a reasonable time to answer, a continuance may be granted in the discretion of the commission; provided that in any case where any person affected by such decision petitions the commission for a rehearing of the application and on oath alleges facts and grounds for consideration which were not formerly presented or considered, or any other matter of fact which in the judgment of the commission seems sufficient to warrant a rehearing, such rehearing may be granted by the commission in its discretion. When a rehearing is allowed notice shall be given to the applicant and to the applicant's opponents, by publication or otherwise as the commission shall direct. [L Sp 1933, c 40, §34; RL 1935, §2603; RL 1945, §7255; RL 1955, §159-58; am L 1957, c 321, §1(g); HRS §281-59; am L 1972, c 177, §7; am L 1984, c 123, §3; gen ch 1985; am L 1990, c 171, §19; am L 1995, c 142, §2]