One would think that rats in the market would be enough to kill just about anybody's entrepreneurial drive.

But for Chinatown merchants and grocers, a videotape of rats cavorting around a vegetable stand was merely the latest in a series of misfortunes to wreak havoc on local business.

“;(The rat video) wasn't even the worst of it,”; said grocer Paul Min, whose You 2 market is one of many at Kekaulike Market, where the videotape was made.

Now merchants and community members are working to resurrect the market and its scarred image. Walls have been knocked down and aisles widened to destroy potential hiding places. Min said he believes the rodent situation is “;under control.”;

Min is a member of Friends of Chinatown, a group dedicated to the revitalization of Chinatown. On June 5, Friends of Chinatown will lead a graffiti cleanup throughout the community to put a fresh face on a fading treasure. About 300 people have volunteered, with paint and other cleanup materials donated by local businesses.

“;We want to make Chinatown kind of like San Francisco or L.A. or even Hong Kong, a destination site,”; said Johnny Ng, a local businessman who is president of Friends of Chinatown. “;We would like it to be the kind of place where people can come and spend the day.”;

Min, who has operated his market since almost the opening of Kekaulike Market in 1998, remembers when Chinatown was crowded from dawn to dusk with shoppers and tourists. Then the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks occurred, which scared people into staying home.

A bus strike in 2003 kept many Chinatown customers from getting downtown and opened up opportunities for businesses elsewhere. The SARS epidemic was even worse, with people being unwilling to gather in large crowds of Chinese people.

Nowadays, the area attracts modest crowds throughout the day and at 6 p.m., “;it's like a ghost town,”; Min said.

Although the rat video, which surfaced in November, attracted much notoriety, it was actually a garbage problem at Kekaulike Mall that gave birth to the Friends of Chinatown, members of the group said. Some Chinatown businesses had contracted with the city to remove their garbage, and other businesses began adding their garbage without paying. The city, noticing the unusual increase, stopped picking up the garbage entirely, with predictable results.

“;We had a mountain of garbage,”; said Barbara Hao, who lives in Kekaulike Courtyards, a housing complex on the mall.

The problem was compounded by the well-intentioned creation of a bulky-item garbage pickup site at the corner of the mall. Again, people began dumping garbage of all kinds at the site.

Some merchants believe it was the accumulation of garbage that created the rat problem in the first place. The bulky pickup site is gone now, and businesses have agreed to make their own arrangements for garbage pickup and not to add their garbage in with others'.

Friends of Chinatown has about 50 members, including businesspeople, community activists and public officials. The group is learning how to reach out to public agencies for help in taking on problems such as street crime, which has long been Chinatown's bane. The group has joined with other Chinatown organizations to conduct evening street patrols, accompanied by police officers.

“;It still takes place, but it is less open,”; Ng said of the crime.

Richard Fikani, an acting sergeant with the Honolulu Police Department who is working with the group, says the broad base of the organization has the potential to be much more effective than similar previous efforts.

“;Sometimes you get one person in there, they have a business there, and they want to make sure the place is nice,”; he said. “;Then the minute they leave or sell the business, it dies. Right now you got some really good groups trying to make this a really good part of town.”;

Members are also taking other measures to spruce up Kekaulike Mall, a one-block, brick-lined walkway between Hotel and North King streets. Hao keeps a sharp eye out for street vendors, who, seeing that the mall had a lot of pedestrian traffic and no licensing fees, would set up their stands there. That cut into the established businesses' take, in addition to turning the mall into an obstacle course.

“;I tell them, 'You got one minute to get out of here,'”; she said. “;Now if they see me, they don't even bother.”;

The group also wants to place benches on Kekaulike Mall to give visitors a place to rest and visit. “;The trick is to find benches that are comfortable enough to sit on but not to lie on,”; Ng said, in an attempt to discourage the homeless from settling in.

“;In the old days, people used to come to Chinatown to meet each other,”; said Friends of Chinatown member Sandra Pohl, of Louis Pohl art gallery. “;There was a lot of socializing, a lot of community activity. Now it's time to bring that back.”;