A two-part comment on yesterday’s post questions how a Miske-related company was able to obtain a liquor license despite his status as a convicted felon.

You published a Civil Beat article in August 2020 detailing all of Miske’s convictions. By 2011/2012 if I understood that article correctly he already had multiple convictions including a felony. If that’s the case, how could the following have occurred:

1) Liquor license awarded to Hawaii Partners LLC / Leverage LLC with Miske as a minority owner. This is a State/City question.

2) Waterfront Partners LLC / Shidler Group (M Nightclub’s landlord) allowed a business with a convicted felon minority owner to sign a lease to run a nightclub with a liquor license. This is private matter, concerning a landlord who looked the other way to make money, and in the process endangered the lives of hundreds of innocent people including neighboring business owners who sometimes got caught in the crosshairs of Miske’s ambitions.

The quick answer to the first part is that state liquor law allows a license to be issued to a corporation or partnership which has a member, partner, or stockholder who is a convicted felon, as long as their interest is less than 25 percent, and the others are “fit and proper” persons found to be qualified to hold a license.

This means that as long as Miske only held a 20 percent interest in the nightclub, as reported to the Honolulu Liquor Commission, granting a license was in line with the commission’s rules and state law.

In this case, of course, prosecutors allege long after the fact that Miske actually controlled the company holding the license for his M Nightclub, although the application claimed he held only a 20% interest, raising questions about how such matters are investigated by the commission.

There’s nothing on the public record to indicate where Jason Yokoyama, who on paper controlled 70% of the company, would have come up with his share of the original investment if it didn’t come from Miske. In 2011, the year before M Nightclub opened, Yokoyama worked for Miske’s Kamaaina Termite. He testified in a later court case that he had no experience with a nightclub before before becoming the majority owner of M Nightclub. There were no loans recorded at the Bureau of Conveyances to Yokoyama, or his companies, including Leverage Inc. and Leverage Entertainment LLC.

As to the question of liability on the part of the landlords of Miske’s M Nightclub, there is no indication that “a landlord looked the other way to make money.” The club was legal, at least on its face. However, several victims of a 2016 attack by bouncers at the nightclub brought a civil suit against the nightclub, its corporate owner, and the landlord and landowner, including Trustees of The Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop dba Kamehameha Schools, and Shidler Investment Company, LLC, dba The Shidler Group. These defendants settled last year, and were dismissed from the case.

Leverage Inc., the corporate owner of M Nightclub which prosecutors allege was actually controlled by Mike Miske, later pointed the finger for the assault that night at Michael Buntenbah, and asserted Buntenbah was not an employee of the nightclub, and in fact was rarely at the nightclub. In a sworn deposition, Yokoyama described the two as having “a working relationship,” and did not explain why Buntenbah had not had to pay to enter the club, and was in a rear area of the club off limits to all except staff and guests.

At one point, Yokoyama started explained, “We were both friends of…,” but stopped before finishing the sentence. He was not asked whether they were both friends of Miske.

Buntenbah’s attorney in the federal criminal case said he had been employed as a bouncer at the club, despite Yokoyama’s claim to the contrary.

The Michigan-based attorney, Gary Springstead, said one of the charges against Buntenbah, conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering, “is related to Mr. Buntenbah’s employment as a bouncer at a night club – a role that carries an inherent risk of physical altercation.”