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Permit not required
for Magic Island

Question: Must picnic areas at Magic Island, which are numbered, be reserved? If so, with what office and what is the phone number?

Answer: You are advised to get a permit and make a reservation if you want to be assured of getting one of the 11 numbered picnic spots at Magic Island.

Call the city Department of Parks and Recreation's Ala Moana Park office at 592-2288 for reservations.

If there are fewer than 25 people in attendance, no permit is required, said Tom Noa, the McCoy Pavilion and Ala Moana Regional Park facility manager.

However, it might be wise to get one anyway, because permit holders have priority in securing an area. It would be wise to request a permit at least three weeks in advance. You are allowed to make reservations up to six months in advance, Noa said.

However, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get a spot, especially during summer, when reservations fill up fast.

In addition to the 11 spots at Magic Island, there are 21 numbered areas throughout Ala Moana Park, Noa said.

There is no permit fee for fewer than 100 people in a group.

For more than 100, the fee will depend on the number in attendance. For example, for 100 to 290 people, you will be required to put down a $100 deposit, which is refundable if no damage is done.

Meanwhile, you are allowed to set up an inflatable structure at a picnic site, but if so, you are required to provide the name of the vendor so the city can verify insurance coverage, Noa said.

However, no water inflatables are allowed at Magic Island or Ala Moana Park.

Auwe

I was at Star Market in Moiliili about 4:30 p.m. July 4. I'm handicapped but couldn't find an open handicap parking stall because it seemed like everybody who is not handicapped was using the stalls. To make it worse, the security guard wasn't doing anything. -- Cliff

Next time, bring it to the attention of the store manager, and "the manager can respond," said Roel Tavita, operations director for Star Markets.

He noted that security guards do not have any enforcement authority and cannot issue citations for illegal parking in the handicap stalls.

However, they can warn people that they cannot park in those stalls unless they have a disabled parking placard, Tavita said. They can also call police when they do see a violation.

Tavita said security guards will be reminded to monitor usage of the stalls.

He noted that in the past, volunteers trained by the Honolulu Police Department to enforce disabled-parking laws "used to come all the time" to monitor the parking lot.

He said he would ask HPD if the volunteers could be assigned to do so again.

As we've previously noted, only police and deputized disabled-parking enforcement volunteers can issue citations.

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