STAND. COM. REP. NO. 845

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 925

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 925, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SECONDHAND DEALERS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to clarify that the secondhand dealers law applies to a secondhand dealer's operation of an automated recycling kiosk that purchases previously owned consumer hand-held electronic devices.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Maui Police Department, Retail Merchants of Hawaii, TechNet, and ecoATM. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Honolulu Police Department and Hawaii Pawnbrokers Association.

Your Committee finds that electronic waste kiosks, or automated recycling kiosks, provide a resource for consumers to sell their old cell phones, which are then collected and recycled or refurbished.  Automated recycling kiosks have modernized electronic waste recycling and have diverted more than seven million pounds of electronic waste from local landfills across the country. Your Committee further finds that existing law requires secondhand dealers to store property in the county for a certain holding period, which creates a barrier for the operators of the automatic recycling kiosks, due to the limited space within the kiosk, the safety risks of long storage time requirements, and other related logistical issues. Your Committee additionally finds that, although it may not be practicable for operators of automated recycling kiosks to store cellular phones in the county in which the phones were received or purchased for the full retention period, a complete exemption from the in-county storage requirement for cellular phones received or purchased by automated recycling kiosks could present an undue obstacle to law enforcement in cases of theft.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Clarifying that the previously owned consumer hand-held electronic devices purchased by automated recycling kiosks are limited to cellular phones;

(2) Clarifying that articles required to be retained by operators of automated recycling kiosks are previously owned consumer hand-held electronic cellular phone devices;

(3) Requiring cellular phones received or purchased by an automated recycling kiosk to be retained in the county in which they were received or purchased for no less than the initial five business days of the retention period and at an alternate business location outside the county for a total period of thirty days; and

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

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 925, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 925, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary,

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KARL RHOADS, Chair