HONOLULU — Days after power outages cost Chinatown small business owners thousands of dollars in lost inventory and sales, multiple events on Saturday aimed to draw customers back to the area and help shops and restaurants begin the road to recovery.
A community walk organized by City Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and Downtown/Chinatown Neighborhood Board Chair Ernest Caravalho began on Richards Street Saturday morning, working its way through the area and stopping at various community institutions and residential projects including Kumu Kahua Theatre, Hocking Hale and the Wo Fat Building.
Dos Santos-Tam said that while the walk — one of three he hopes to hold this year — had been planned for several weeks, its focus shifted following the outages last week.
“(The blackouts) really galvanized the community’s attention to say, ‘This is a special place. We appreciate it as a community. We want to support them,’” Dos Santos-Tam said. “It was a really good opportunity to showcase all of the good things that are happening.”
Around 40 people, including residents, community leaders and business owners, joined the walk. Rich Bailey, who lives in Chinatown, said he participated to support small businesses, and to hear about what was going on in the area and how various projects were developing.
“More people here means less problems, less crime. More good activity is helpful to the whole community and keeps the place going,” he said. “I think it’s a good thing (that) the city is addressing it.”
While his building was not affected by the outages, Bailey said the streetlights and traffic signals around it were out, making it difficult to drive at night last week.
Hawai‘i Theatre Center and First Hawaiian Bank also hosted the free “Malama Chinatown: A Community Revitalization Event” Saturday afternoon at Dr. Sun Yat-sen Park, featuring live music and vendors.
“With the theater being one of the major attractions and draws in Chinatown, I had the opportunity to jump in yesterday and say, ‘Hey, let’s do something this weekend to encourage the community to come to Chinatown,’” Hawai‘i Theatre Center President and CEO Greg Dunn said.
“We felt … to reach out and create an event like this and bring entertainment into Sun Yat-sen Park, that this would give a real reason to come to Chinatown, enjoy the afternoon, go to the different shops, visit the restaurants and help bring some much-needed commerce to the community.”
The wide push on social media by area businesses also helped bring people back to the neighborhood.
While waiting in line at Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery, Rowena Yee and Douglas Oh said the eatery is always a stop when they’re in the area, but they don’t go to Chinatown often. They chose to visit Saturday after seeing social media posts encouraging patronage in the area. Yee said she bought lunch and was planning to buy more snacks and dinner from Chinatown merchants as well.
“We’re just happy to support the businesses and the people,” Oh said. “They need to stay around for those of us who don’t live in Chinatown who like to frequent Chinatown. We appreciate that they’re open.”
As more customers returned to Chinatown this weekend, business owners expressed gratitude for the support.
“I just feel relieved that there’s a good outlook that we’ll still be able to recover,” Jeffrey Liu of Bread House Bakery said. The bakery was closed three days last week and was forced to throw away products due to food safety concerns because of a lack of refrigeration. Liu said that over the three days, the business lost about $3,000.
Smith’s Union Bar modified their hours this past week, opening everyday at 8 a.m. as usual but closing up early at around 7:30 p.m. throughout the outage.
“I make my living off the night shift,” owner Dwight Lockwood said. “That really hurt us, being closed. Even though we were open (during the day), it was really hot. There were no cash registers, so we were having to write everything down by hand.”
Lockwood estimates losing around $3,500 over the course of the outages.
Benjamin’s Sweets, which sells a Chinese candied fruit snack called tanghulu, opened on Maunakea Street a few months ago. Owner James Novey said the outages hit the new business hard.
“Everything we make here is fresh fruit. We had just bought a large amount of inventory,” Novey said. “We had to go through all the refrigerators and freezers. We took half a day to thoroughly clean everything.”
Based on projected sales and lost inventory, Novey said that the business lost around $8,000 over the four days it was closed.
Both Lockwood and Novey said they didn’t receive much information from Hawaiian Electric Co. about the status of the outages, which could have helped them develop better strategies to keep their businesses running, including scheduling employees and planning food preparation.
“I understand things happen, but there was no information given out unless you get on social media and track (it). They put out nothing, they didn’t tell us anything,” Lockwood said. “Luckily for me, I don’t have a kitchen so I can cool my beer back off. All these other restaurants lost tens of thousands of dollars in revenue, plus they have to throw away all that food, let alone buy all new food, due to the electric company not being upfront with everybody.”
Novey said that he hasn’t begun the process of filing a claim for damages with HECO yet, with all of his focus now on getting his store back on its feet.
“It’s sad to see all this unnecessarily happen,” Novey said. “We’re getting back in the groove.”
Dos Santos-Tam said that he and his team went door-to-door on Thursday and Friday, handing out flyers in English, Chinese and Vietnamese about how to file a claim for damages with HECO.
“We want to make sure that these businesses who have suffered are taking every possible step, so that’s been really, really positive,” Dos Santos-Tam said. “When my team was out here, all the business owners are just so grateful to have some information, especially information in their native language, because I think that makes them feel included and supported.”
Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawai‘i officials also said they will provide bilingual assistance to small business owners filing claims with HECO. Businesses can call the chamber at 808-533-3181 for the Chinese-translated claim form or for other assistance.
