Gathering Places
Gathering Places
Downtown residents
don’t want life to become
a cabaretMORE TO THE STORY
Life is a cabaret, according to the mayor's Downtown-Chinatown Task Force.While Mayor Harris is working to shut down the Hawaii Convention Center's noisy, infamous, late-night entertainment district, his task force wants to relocate it, in the form of wall-to-wall cabarets, to the Downtown-Chinatown area bordered by Bishop, Beretania and River streets and Nimitz Highway.
Downtown-Chinatown, however, does not need another two hours of late night noise. Crime and other problems affecting downtown should not be exacerbated in the attempt to make the convention center area attractive to tourists. The mayor, who could stop the plan, has been silent.
Cabarets are the only establishments serving liquor that remain open until 4 a.m.; all others must close at 2 a.m. Cabarets, restaurants and bars can provide dancing and entertainment. Right now the area under consideration does not have any cabarets, but locations designated for new cabarets exist elsewhere. The proposed spot zoning is inappropriate, and the rules must not be changed to permit it.
Those of us who live in the Downtown-Chinatown area would like to get a decent night's sleep, like the many task force members who live in the residential areas of Hawaii Kai, Kaneohe, Puunui, Nuuanu, Pauoa, elsewhere on Oahu and off island.
Those members are not awakened night after night from noise of karaoke bars and restaurants and their bar-hopping patrons. They are not awakened by screeching tires, loud arguments, fights, clinking bottles. They do not suffer from sleep deprivation. They are oblivious to the health and well-being of 10,000 people. They want the area to become another honky- tonk Waikiki.
Contrary to popular belief, the Downtown-Chinatown area is not exclusively high-rise office buildings and food stores. It is a growing residential area, with many elderly people, families and college students. It is home to more than 10,000 people, including 1,187 children, a business college, two universities, four churches and a mission. The city is spending $7 million to build a park on top of the Smith/Beretania parking lot for the residents.
Using the argument of economic development and with only 20 of its 100 members present at its April meeting, the mayor's task force voted to ask the Liquor Commission to amend its rules governing the density of cabarets. Task force members then met secretly with liquor commissioners to press their case, putting opponents at a disadvantage.
Liquor Commission rules require that cabarets, strip joints and hostess bars be separated by 500 feet, with the exception of cabarets in the resort areas of Waikiki. The task force wants the same rule to govern downtown. That means any and every store front in the area could be a cabaret. No exceptions.
Task Force Chairman Bob Gerell said "the proposed downtown area of 10 square blocks is smaller than Waikiki and should therefore have the exemption." His letter to the Liquor Commission said, "The requested exclusion is important to stimulate businesses to invest money and ideas into the area so that local folks and visitors alike would have a safe and fun place to visit for entertainment....buy antiques, art and crafts objects, Chinese clothes and slippers."
At 2, or 3, or 4 a.m.? Do we really expect art galleries and clothing stores to be open in the wee hours of the morning?
Operating hours are not the only problem; so is the proposed increase in density. Police testimony bears out an increase in crime with 4 a.m. closings. Several years ago-o when there were three cabarets at Restaurant Row the police were called almost nightly to deal with overcrowding, gang fights, shootings and noise. The cabarets attracted persons who had been drinking elsewhere and were looking for places open after 2 a.m.
This is Downtown-Chinatown's future if the task force's warped vision prevails.
Lynne Matusow is chairwoman of the Downtown Neighborhood Board.