Hanalei boat firms HANALEI, Kauai >> The three surviving boat companies offering Na Pali Coast tours from Hanalei Bay won a major victory over state boating officials yesterday in U.S. District Court in Honolulu.
win reprieve
from judge
Judge Gillmor zaps state attempts
to ban tour operators
from Kauai's Hanalei BayBy Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.comDistrict Judge Helen Gillmor issued a permanent injunction forbidding the state Department of Land and Natural Resources from using a rule it adopted in November to shut down the three boaters.
The three boat operators -- Bob Butler, Ralph Young and John White -- have continued tours from Hanalei this summer under a temporary restraining order issued earlier by Gillmor.
The judge conducted a hearing on a request for a permanent injunction Aug. 6, and yesterday was the deadline for her ruling.
Her decision came in the form of a brief minute order. A full opinion giving her reasoning will come later.
Officials of the state Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation declined comment until they can study her full opinion.
Among the unknown factors is whether Gillmor's decision reinstates the previous state rule that allowed up to 15 permits. Her order yesterday applied only to Butler, Young and White.
The fight over tour boat operations between boaters backed by the tourism industry and environmentalists has raged for a quarter-century.
In 1998, Gov. Ben Cayetano appeared to have ended it when he ordered about a dozen tour boat companies operating without valid permits out of Hanalei. Most relocated to Port Allen, on the island's south shore, and bought larger boats to make the more lengthy journey.
Cayetano allowed the seven boaters who still held valid permits to remain in operation until their permits expired. When the permits ran out, the Department of Land and Natural Resources ordered them out of Hanalei.
Butler, Young and White responded by suing the state in Kauai Circuit Court because the rule allowing up to 15 permits in Hanalei was still on the books.
Judge George Masuoka sided with the boaters, ruling that the department, in effect, had tried to eject the three boaters without changing the rules.
The department then went through the procedures required by state law, and last November, the state Land Board adopted a new rule setting the number of tour boats allowed to operate from Hanalei at zero.
The three boaters then went to federal court and filed a civil rights action, claiming the department had no rational basis for throwing all the boats out of Hanalei. They pointed out that in 1998 the same state agency was advocating an increase to 17 permits.
Kauai County
