Clarity about Hanapepe Friday Nights My wife and I have had our bookstore business in Hanapepe for over seven years and have always participated in Hanapepe’s Friday Night Festival and Art Walk, an event that a few artists started over
Clarity about Hanapepe Friday Nights
My wife and I have had our bookstore business in Hanapepe for over seven years and have always participated in Hanapepe’s Friday Night Festival and Art Walk, an event that a few artists started over a decade ago, which has evolved over the years. It has always been an unofficial agreement between shops that choose to be open.
However, a vocal minority, comprised of a few galleries and business owners, has brought into the public forum their desire to dictate who and what belongs in Hanapepe town during “their” Friday Night.
They have been trying to legally get their way by pointing out to the county that it is not explicitly stated that the vendors have a right to set up in the parking areas, in order to remove what they don’t like or view as “competition.”
Considering the vast number of people who have been enjoying what Friday Night has become, whether it is currently legal or not for vendors to set up in the storefront parking stalls, laws can be changed to make it legal.
When it comes to how our government should handle itself in such matters, even George Washington was adamant about removing any impediments that interfered with free enterprise.
Here’s a win-win solution:
— The County provides a permitting process for vendors that want to set up in the storefront parking stalls in town that are county “right-of-way”,
— Have a requirement in the permit that vendors must have a valid GE tax license, health permit (if food), and written permission from either the business owner, property manager, or property owner (in that ascending hierarchy) to set up in front of that property.
The county’s liability is protected, vendors are legally protected, and it allows the individual businesses and landlords the freedom to choose whether they want to have vendors or not.
Also, an easy solution to this vocal minority’s “sudden concern” about the pedestrian traffic is for the county to make it a one-way street during Friday nights, which easily makes it safer if ever needed.
What saddens us with this being brought to the county to solve, is that it opens a “can of worms” that could affect all types of vendors island-wide, not just Hanapepe on Friday Night.
These Friday Night vendors have never bothered or harassed the other shops, but the vendors have withstood this vocal minority’s verbal harassment, signs being torn up, threats of removal, even a store owner claiming to be a sheriff and a Health Department representative, stepping inside their food trucks without permission, demanding to see their permits.
The root of their distressing behaviors and actions are about more than just “competition”. It’s about what kind of people, customers and businesses they want in “their fine art town”.
They have stated to me that “there is now a lower caliber of people coming into town”. They have even told non-art businesses, a classic car club, and girl scouts selling cookies that their presence “doesn’t fit with and detracts from Art Night”. They are uncomfortable because the town’s business climate is changing.
Growth in the face of change is what America is about. If people are not buying what a business has to sell, it is solely the responsibility of the business to examine their methods, innovate themselves and their products.
Blaming others and attempting to remove the “competition” is not in the “Spirit of Aloha” and is not a long-term solution.
It is important for those of you who enjoy the Friday Night event to contact your county leaders to actively show your support for the solution that will encourage “Aloha”, economic growth, and the continuance of a safe and fun Friday Night experience for all.
Ed Justus
Talk Story Bookstore
Hanapepe
Rising waters
In the light of the proposed water rate increase forthcoming from the Department of Water, can there be any recourse?
As in the past, most increases were made with little public input. In these hard economic times, I ask why.
The DOA feels autonomous or separate from the County of Kaua‘i, having their own hand at their finances.
I believe it is time to make them answerable, publicly, when asking for such a large increase. Especially since the resource you are getting charged for is yours.
This increase will be a tremendous financial burden on families, farmers and businesses. We are living in times where we are making less, and expenses are forever increasing.
In the light of our situation, there can be no sensible justification by the DOA that can merit an annual 11 percent increase over the next four years!
Time to start thinking about our people, let us do what is pono.
Sherwood Conant, Kilauea
