Bill Text: HI HB740 | 2013 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Hawaii Public Housing Authority; Intoxicating Liquor; Prohibitions

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2013-03-20 - Report adopted; Passed Second Reading and referred to JDL. [HB740 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2013-HB740-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 921

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 740

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 740 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO OPEN CONTAINERS OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS IN PUBLIC HOUSING,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to prohibit the possession or storage of an open container that contains intoxicating liquor on any sidewalk or common area within any public housing project under the jurisdiction of the Hawaii Public Housing Authority.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Public Housing Authority.

 

Your Committee finds that state law prohibits the consumption of intoxicating liquors on public sidewalks, including any sidewalk within a public housing project as defined in sections 356D-1 and 356D-91, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and in common areas of public housing projects.  However, this prohibition can be difficult to enforce since it is limited by the word "consumption", requiring that either a law enforcement officer visibly observe a perpetrator in the action of imbibing intoxicating liquor or a witness be willing to testify to visibly observing a perpetrator in the act of imbibing intoxicating liquor.  By broadening the prohibition to possession or storage of open intoxicating liquor containers, the requirement of physically observing a perpetrator in the act of imbibing in order to support prosecution is removed, making violations easier to report and enforce.

 

     Your Committee further finds that the existing prohibition on consumption of intoxicating liquors on public sidewalks and common areas of public housing projects applies only to federal low‑income public housing under the jurisdiction of the Hawaii Public Housing Authority.  This measure additionally subjects state low-income public housing under the jurisdiction of the Hawaii Public Housing Authority to the prohibitions in this measure.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 740, and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Human Services,

 

		____________________________ SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair