Music and balloons filled the air and children jostled for position at several game booths.

Their parents danced the macarena.

But the festive atmosphere belied an underlying fact: business is rough.

"If you go through here and look at the establishments that have gone out since the road was widened, you'd be amazed," said Bill Mimiaga, manager of Aloha Dive Shop.

"The state's not in good fiscal health. The problem goes deeper than just the highway."

Mimiaga said Kentucky Fried Chicken, Island Snow, Baskin Robbins and Little Caesar's have left the Hawaii Kai shopping center in the past year.

The weekend event was an effort to "rejuvenate" the area's business community, said Murray Luther who conceived the idea.

"We suffered here for 4-1/2 years," he said.

"Our shopping centers are too small to do things by themselves but collectively we can put our heads together. . . . We do have a beautiful place out here."

Yesterday and Saturday, boats shuttled visitors between Koko Marina, Town Center and Hawaii Kai Shopping Center.

The event was a fund-raiser for Kaiser High School.

Nolan Dang of the Koko Marina Local Motion store said smoother traffic flow on the highway is helping business.

"Getting in and out has been a lot easier," he said.

"But, overall, right now, tourism is not as good as before. That's what effects us the most."

Allyn Plant, who opened a women's clothing store called Dress Up six months ago, says things are improving.

"Now you can get here from town in 12 minutes," he said.

"We get people coming from Pearl City. . . . We've been doing better every month."

Donald Keawe, who heads up security at the center, said the drive between Hawaii Kai and Honolulu is much improved.

"It was pretty bad," he noted. "Now it's much better depending on the time of day. But now there's room for the speeders too."

Hawaii Kai resident Shari Bucky agreed.

"It's great now," she said. "It's difficult to imagine now how it was before.

"But we went through five years of it. It's cut my commute time in half."

That, said Scott Foster of Hawaii Kai, depends on what time you drive. "If you leave prior to 7 a.m. you can get downtown in half an hour," he said.

"After seven, it can take an hour."

Naomi Kumano said the improvements are welcome as far as they go.

"It's improved only from the point where they start the contra-flow," she said.

But that's more than a mile west from her Hawaii Kai home.

The $86 million widening project made Kalanianaole into a six-lane highway.