Council may ban
roosters in town areaOpponents fear the bill will be
interpreted to cover all of Oahu
More than a dozen rooster lovers cried foul over a bill that would outlaw their crowing birds in urban Honolulu, between Pearl City and Hawaii Kai.
"If this passes, it's going to open a Pandora's box," Pat Royos of Kahaluu told the City Council's zoning committee yesterday.
Royos was among those who feared the bill would have far-reaching effects.
Councilman Romy Cachola said, "The people in the City & County of Honolulu are not going to just think it's Pearl City to Hawaii Kai. It will be islandwide in its application.
"Once we set up something like this, then everything else will apply, including those Ewa of Pearl City and the Windward side and the rest not covered."
The committee voted to defer action on the measure while an effort is under way to organize a campaign to educate rooster owners on how to quiet crowing roosters.
"There are different ways to handle this," said Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, who is working with animal rights activists and game breeders groups on the education program.
Kobayashi, who lives in Manoa, said that she has experience with roosters.
"I actually have a conflict of interest because I have roosters running around my yard. They're not my roosters," she said. "And they don't know that Saturday and Sunday you don't have to wake people up."
But she said she understands that rooster owners are attached to their birds.
"Roosters, we take care of them like a baby. That's their son or that's like their daughter, raising them like their kids" said Doffo Targuain of Waipahu.
This measure comes on the heels of another bill that the City Council failed to pass last year. That bill would have banned roosters in residential areas across the island.
No one testified in favor of the latest bill but zoning chairman Charles Djou said he had heard complaints from people in his district, which covers most of East Honolulu.
"Certainly for my constituents ... it has repeatedly been a concern. I think this measure was a means that was modest by limiting it just to the area between Pearl City and Hawaii Kai," said Djou, who introduced the measure.
