STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3158

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 286

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Tourism, to which was referred H.B. No. 286, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TOURISM,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to eliminate the requirement that a hotel have a kitchen and dining room, where meals are regularly prepared and served to hotel guests and other customers, to qualify for a hotel class liquor license.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Liquor Commission of the City and County of Honolulu, Outrigger Enterprises Group, and The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General.

     Your Committees find that there is a trend in modern hotel practice for certain properties to forego maintaining a hotel kitchen and dining room unless needed by an established banquet business.  Instead, these properties rely on separately licensed restaurants to provide meal service for hotel guests.  This measure will support the State's tourism industry by conforming legal requirements to modern business practice and hospitality trends.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Inserting language to clarify that the purpose of this measure is to support the State's tourism industry by increasing the inventory of condominium hotel and hotel rooms in which liquor is available by eliminating the requirement that a condominium hotel or hotel have a kitchen and dining room to qualify for a liquor license; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Tourism that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 286, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 286, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Tourism,

____________________________ GILBERT KAHELE, Chair

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair