THIS weekend, hundreds of tourists will gather at an open-air theater on the lush lawns of a resort hotel to hear Hawaii entertainment legend Don Ho perform. San Diego sails along
while we sinkThe fact that the concert is taking place in San Diego and not Honolulu should be instructive to anyone around here interested in the economic future of Hawaii.
I recently spent three nights at the very hotel where Ho will be appearing, Humphrey's Half Moon Inn, a tiki-type compound complete with lava-rock walls, palms and hibiscus. The place looks like it was dug up from a Waikiki street corner and air-dropped intact onto the shores of San Diego Bay.
The fact that it reeks of Hawaii has absolutely nothing to do with Don Ho appearing there. The hotel hosts big-name entertainers every week from Sinead O'Connor to Peter Frampton.
Entertainers go where the people are and the people are in San Diego because the economy is booming on a scale that would make Alan Greenspan jump up and down and yell "Goody! Goody!" or at least smile sagely.
Four days isn't long enough to conduct an in-depth economic analysis of the region, but I did learn a few things during my daily tromps from the hotel up Shelter Island Drive to the village center to get scratch-off lottery tickets and real tacos.
It was a lovely walk, the street lined with large trees and small businesses of every ilk, although most related to the marine industry. And just beyond the buildings on each side, the bay was filled to brimming with marinas and boats, from huge Horatio Hornblower-type multi-masted boogers to smallish motor-powered launches along the skiff line.
Here's just a sample of the businesses I passed: yacht brokerages, seafood restaurants, marine equipment and supply houses, de-salinization machine distributors, embroidered-apparel shops, compass and sextant adjusters, fine-carpentry workshops, marine electric shops, sign painters and a store selling some sort of boat-related gizmos whose usage is beyond me.
Hawaii Economic Revitalization Task Force members can harvest a degree of vindication concerning their scheme to raise the state excise tax, because San Diego's sales tax is twice ours and business is doing just fine.
But it appeared to me that the reason all these businesses were humming along so wonderfully was not because government did anything for them but because it got out of the way.
The San Diego Port Authority strikes deals with private marina developers. The private developers build the marinas and docks. The boats come and entrepreneurship sails grandly along. The myriad marine-type businesses take care of the boat owners while the restaurants, hotels and Shelter Island village shops cater to tourists who come to see the boats and, I suppose, Don Ho.
It seems to be a fine symbiotic relationship where small business is the backbone and government largely stands on the sidelines -- or, in this case, shorelines -- and watches.
San Diego has a lot in common with Honolulu: a wonderful climate, about 1.8 million people, a large military presence and water, water everywhere. The difference is they USE their water.
It makes you wonder why Keehi Lagoon lays largely unused and politicians here view small business as the enemy.
San Diego seems to understand that small businesses are like tiny bubbles -- alone, they are nothing, but together they are reason to celebrate. And they've got Mr. Tiny Bubbles himself to orchestrate their celebration.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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