STAND. COM. REP. NO.632

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 1234

S.D. 2

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1234, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to impose civil social host liability on adults for damages caused by the intoxication of persons under the age of twenty-one years.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from eight members of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Hawaii and the Hawaii Food Industry Association. The Consumer Lawyers of Hawaii provided comments and suggested amendments.

Your Committee finds that underage drinking is a serious problem in Hawaii. Youth who begin drinking before reaching the age of fifteen are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who begin drinking at age twenty-one. The average age at which children begin drinking is twelve years. By the time Hawaii teenagers are seniors in high school, seventy-seven percent have used alcohol. In the past five years, an average of twenty-six fatalities resulted from crashes involving drivers fifteen to twenty years old, many of these were alcohol related.

Your Committee notes that this bill is based on a recently passed Minnesota measure that requires that a host knowingly or recklessly permitted consumption. Your Committee amended the bill by:

(1) Replacing "knowingly or recklessly" as the standard for liability with "knows or reasonably should know";

(2) Rewording subsection (a) and using the present tense;

(3) Deleting the language in subsection (b) relating to payment of recovery, and inserting the exemption from subsection (a) for commercial enterprises that serve liquor into subsection (b); and

(4) Deleting reference to nonrecovery by insurance companies under section 663-B.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1234, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1234, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Chair