Blind isle vendors
get cold shoulder

Concessionaires say the military
shut them out of a building boom

Over the past decades, the federal government has spent billions of dollars building new facilities on Hawaii's military bases.

The state's blind vendors, backed by U.S. law, should have benefited from that spending. They should have been offered small spaces in some of the new buildings to sell food and other snacks, according to the law.

But the legally blind concessionaires say the military has largely shut them out of Hawaii's military construction boom.

"They've been ignoring us in this regard," said Virgil Stinnett, president of the Honolulu chapter of the National Federation of the Blind and of the blind merchants division of Hawaii.

Representatives for several military branches said their respective services are committed to following the law and providing job opportunities for blind vendors.

Since the 1930s, the Randolph-Sheppard Act has given preference to blind vendors so they can set up small snack stands in federal facilities across the country.

In 1974, the law was amended to mandate that blind vendors, who in Hawaii are trained and certified through a state program, receive space in federal buildings meeting certain specifications.

The state also must be notified that the space is to become available, triggering a process leading to selection of a vending site within the building.

The statute requires that space be set aside for a blind vendor in any new or substantially renovated building on federal property as long as the structure houses at least 100 civilian workers. The law also applies to any new or substantially renovated building that provides services to the public and has at least 15,000 square feet.

Dozens of facilities fitting either criteria have opened on Hawaii's military bases since the 1974 amendments took effect, advocates for the blind say.

Yet no blind-vendor snack shop exists on a military base in Hawaii.

Vendors and advocates say their requests for space in specific projects have mostly been stonewalled by military officials in recent years.

"They're just not responding," said Stan Young, who runs a vending facility at Kuhio Park Terrace, a public housing project. "The military has been balking. They have more power and their own legal people, and they've been stalling the state."

Lt. Barbara Mertz, a spokeswoman for Navy Region Hawaii, said the Navy is in routine contact with the state about blind vendor opportunities.

"These discussions have helped the Navy to focus more effectively on placement of blind vendor stands in newly constructed facilities," Mertz said.

She noted that two projects in the works -- a training center on Ford Island and an intelligence facility in Central Oahu -- will include space for blind vendors.

Mertz and other military representatives couldn't say whether their respective branches followed the Randolph-Sheppard Act in years past by notifying the state whenever eligible buildings were constructed here. But they stressed the importance of ensuring that blind vendors are offered vending opportunities in the future as required by the law.

"We are definitely committed to following all federal regulations," said Capt. Chris Perrine, spokesman for Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe.

Once the state is notified that a building falls under the Randolph-Sheppard Act, the state is supposed to work with the federal agency to select a vending site before completion of the building's final space layout, according to the law.

Vendors said the Department of Human Services, the state agency that oversees the program locally, rarely received advance notice from the military until recently.

They said DHS, for instance, had to take the initiative to seek vending space in the Pacific Command headquarters at Camp Smith while that building was under construction and at the Pearl Harbor shopping mall, which opened in 2002 and features the world's largest Navy retail outlet.

Even though both facilities were built with spaces for food vendors, neither of them incorporated blind vendor facilities into their plans, and neither project has a blind vendor operating there.

The Pacific Command headquarters opened last year.

Mertz of the Navy said she wasn't aware of any requests that were received from the state seeking vending space at the Pearl Harbor project.

Perrine said the Marine Corps, which oversees vending operations at the Pacific Command, is checking to see if Randolph-Sheppard applies to that project.

The lack of vending opportunities at military facilities is getting more attention of late because the state is seeking more sites to accommodate a waiting list of certified vendors.

Three are awaiting vending sites, and more are expected to complete their training later this year.

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a long-time advocate for the blind, said the military-access problem has remained below the radar for years partly because blind vendors consider themselves fiercely independent and are reluctant to seek outside help.

But that doesn't excuse the military for failing to stay on top of the issue, Abercrombie said.

"Probably the Navy and the others let it slide because nobody has been putting pressure on them," he said.

Abercrombie said he is hopeful the different military branches will resolve the problem on their own. But if they don't, he added, "we'll fix it for them."

Local vendors say the state and county governments historically have been more cooperative than the military in setting aside space whenever new buildings open.

Of the 37 snack shops statewide under the blind vending program, 30 are in state or county buildings. The other seven are on federal property, including sites at Tripler Army Medical Center in Moanalua, the Hale Koa Hotel in Waikiki and the Prince Kuhio Federal Building Downtown.

A blind vendor also runs a cafeteria at Schofield Army Barracks. But the contract for that operation was awarded through a competitive bid process and is not covered by the regulations pertaining to space for snack shops.

Vendors and their advocates say they have been encouraged by recent signs that some military branches are more aware of the requirements of Randolph-Sheppard.

It was the Navy, for example, that notified the state last April about the future vending opportunities at the Ford Island training center and Central Oahu intelligence project, they said.

"We were flabbergasted. It was the first time ever," said Stephen Teeter, business manager for the state's blind vendor program.

Teeter said those notifications came shortly after Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, got involved with the issue.

Stinnett, who runs a snack shop at the Honolulu Advertiser building, expressed optimism after years of little progress.

"There's at least positive movement there," Stinnett said.