Honolulu should emulate San Francisco's laws

I live in San Francisco and am happy to say that most offices frequented by the public have a "no smoking" rule. There is no smoking allowed in any restaurant, bar, theater or public office, and soon the same will apply for public parks and recreation areas. There are still some loopholes as far as some bars are concerned, though, whereby there is a separate room for smokers.

I hope the same law will be adopted soon in Hawaii. I was born and raised in Honolulu and graduated from Farrington High School in 1952. But until your smoking laws are changed, I am not interested in returning after an absence of 35 years.

Antonio "Sonny" Palabrica
San Francisco, Calif.

Fix 'traditional marriages' first before denying rights

Over one half of all first pregnancies in the U.S. are out of wedlock. Half of all traditional marriages end in divorce. One quarter of all traditional marriages involve spouse abuse. One third of murders in Hawaii are due to domestic violence.

Yet the common sense approach to these threats to traditional marriage is to spend millions to prevent three same-sex couples in Hawaii from obtaining marriage licenses.

On Election Day, 70 percent of Hawaiian voters ran out of their houses with constitutional amendment fire extinguishers to put out small candles held by their neighbors, while in their own homes untended fires resulted in flames shooting out of every window. The following Sunday, their priests and ministers congratulated them on their fire-fighting prowess.

The only tradition saved on Election Day was religious intolerance and its requisite persecution of gays and lesbians. While there is no record of any pronouncements by Christ about homosexuality, it is recorded that he often lashed out against the sins of hypocrisy.

Larry Baczeski

Serious reflection needed on Natatorium

The Natatorium is a "hot potato" issue that has been tossed endlessly between state and city government leaders, inevitably encouraging private citizen groups to enter the policy void thus created, complicating and polarizing the decision process, which has now reached a flashpoint that may endanger the interests of all concerned.

A "cooling off" period seems amply justified, with extention of deadlines to permit objective assessment of various proposals by private investors to determine feasibility of a for-profit restoration project which fully meets the state Health Department's imperatives for sanitation both within the pool and its environs, an EIS approval and people-moving strategies to obviate any parking congestion.

Failure to attract sustainable private investment in the venture would clearly signal that, to instead saddle taxpayers with ongoing outlays would be an outrageous imposition, and would establish that a simpler, static selection is in order.

In anticipation of a failed scheme to commercialize the salt-water pool and arena, I would urge that only the mauka facade be preserved and reconfigured to form a pavilion with the central archway dominant, and the flanking, arched walls enclosing an open space suitably landscaped and providing monumental areas to enable memorialization of the war dead from the time of destruction of the Hawaiian monarchy to the present.

Gilbert F. Sofio

School unions block idea of school vouchers

Tuition vouchers may be constitutional but Hawaii's school unions do not intend to release their grip on Hawaii's students or on taxpayer subsidies to education. There is abundant evidence for the benefits of vouchers or other forms of parent control of education, but representatives of school unions are indifferent to evidence, reason or emotional appeal.

At a high cost to taxpayers, and higher cost to students, the HSTA/ HGEA/UPW cartel operates one of the worst school systems in the nation. It would be in the immediate interest of students, and in the long term interest of all citizens, for the Legislature to free children and parents from the grasp of this cartel.

Malcolm Kirkpatrick

Bad judges, laws have destroyed justice system

Many people feel that when a judge retires, for any reason, it's a blessing. With few exceptions, today's judges have no common sense.

They reward people with billions of dollars a year for doing stupid things -- a person falling off a ladder, a man shot while exchanging gunfire with the police and many other dumb things. They do this to keep lawyers employed, to help their own during hard times.

Now if these departing judges were replaced with business people -- people with common sense -- this country would be better off. A judge need not know law, just exercise common sense in making a decision. Our forefathers meant for laws to make sense, not to burden the courts with frivolity.

Today's laws, written by lawyers, are not for the people but are designed to give employment to lawyers, no other reason. An example is the Americans with Disabilities Act, a well-intended law to help people in need. Lawyers have abused that law so often that it is now referred to as ADA -- Attorneys Dreams Answered. This reeks.

Lawyers have caused the price of litigation to rise so high that using it is stupid, unless of course you have money to burn. Our justice system is a joke and judges are not any help in straightening it out.

Bruce Tetreault

Only gunman is to blame for being shot by police

Your Nov. 3 editorial, "Pearl City standoff raises questions," raises questions itself. While you begin and end your commentary by supporting the actions taken by police, in between these two signposts you blamed everyone but Wayman Kaua for his failures in life which led up to the crime in which he was shot.

In a previous day's news article, Kaua's wife also tended to blame everyone but Kaua for his criminal activities. You are both in a serious state of denial.

If Kaua had succeeded in having his death wish granted by the police, or if he had succeeded in killing his wife, I am confident that you would have used the same rationale to hold everyone but Kaua to blame for the result.

Doug Williams

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