B&B

CITY COUNCIL CREATING IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION

The City Council's bed-and-breakfast bill sounds so innocent, but it is not.

It is going to become a toxic waste dump that will haunt us forever. Most of those so-called B&Bs are not going to be little mom-and-pop homes offering a room for the occasional tourist who doesn't want a resort experience. Whole houses will be purchased for the express purpose of turning them into mini-resorts. This has already happened, but with this bill it will become legal. There will be no more residentially zoned neighborhoods. Spot zoning will be the approved norm. Neighborhoods will slowly be destroyed and badly needed housing turned into tourist accommodations.

Worst of all, the council is giving the job of licensing and regulating this new phase of the tourist industry to the Department of Planning and Permitting. Aren't these the same people who for three years were called time and again to investigate violations at a house in Kalihi that recently collapsed? That house turned out to be a dangerous patchwork of scaffolding, boards and tarps that housed 50 or more people.

So how in the world are those inspectors to be expected to monitor the thousands of B&Bs that will be popping up with this new bill?

The council is creating an impossible situation with this bill. There will be no winners.

TOURIST UNITS SHOULDN'T BE IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS

Your Oct. 23 editorial states: "It's been almost 20 years since city officials decided the best way to control vacation rentals in residential areas was to bar the door on any new units being authorized."

You go on to say: "A more sensible approach to the issue is needed" and that some have suggested establishing a separate commission and a system for reviewing applications.

Depending on the plan, anyone who does not want a B&B next door to them must personally oppose the neighbor applying for the permit and gather opposing signatures from 51 perent of residents within a 300-foot radius of the property, or they can rely on the judgment of the overworked Department of Planning and Permitting who will have to decide whether or not you really are inconvenienced by the nightly noise and traffic of strangers or are just a disgruntled neighbor.

Setting up a separate commission to hear complaints adds a cumbersome and costly layer to the existing bureaucracy. Neither reviews nor a commission addresses the root of the problem.

Tourist accommodations don't belong in residential neighborhoods, and no amount of bureaucratic manipulation will solve neighborhood discontent. It will continue until the DPP enforces the existing law and sends a clear message to speculators that family homes are not another part of the tourist industry's "product diversity" model.

Some members of the City Council understand this. What are the other members thinking?

CARGO

INSPECTION FEE WILL HELP PROTECT HAWAI'I

The small cargo inspection fee thoughtfully approved by the Legislature will improve port inspections to protect Hawai'i from invasive species. The cost to each Hawai'i resident is about $5 per year. The real cost of food is more directly tied to the price of fuel, not this small cargo fee.

Non-native fruit flies already cause losses to Hawai'i farmers that are easily 30 times the cost of this fee due to crop damage, treatment, and lost local and overseas markets.

Without preventing new pests, such losses to our produce and flower industries will grow exponentially. Tiny varroa mites are now threatening to cripple Hawai'i's honey bee industry. More than $50 million in taxpayer dollars would be spent each year if red fire ants or brown tree snakes got to Hawai'i. Hana's dengue fever outbreak was limited only because we don't yet have the mosquito species that is the best transmitter of the disease.

This fee — 50 cents on 1,000 pounds of cargo — will generate about $7 million, not $16 million to $26 million as others have asserted. The larger cost estimate incorrectly assumes that the fee is being assessed on bulk fuel imports. It is not.

A healthy environment is our economy. Five dollars a year is a small price to pay to protect our environment, local agriculture, tourism, human health, and quality of life from invasive pests and diseases.

HOSPITALITY

AIRPORT POOR WELCOME TO ARRIVING VISITORS

After coming back from an extended trip away from the Islands, I was disappointed in my feeling that I was not happy about coming home.

After receiving daily greetings from strangers in the Midwest, to the courtesy extended to visitors in Japan, the lack of the aloha spirit was palpable coming off the plane.

The airport in Honolulu is dirty and unkempt, unlike any other airport short of a Third World country that I have visited. Workers attending baggage swear in front of tourists and their children, all while aggressively dumping belongings roughly.

Security guards are rabid in keeping the curbside pick-up area clear of cars to the point that you can't stop to pick anyone up lest a guard starts blowing a whistle to move along.

After coming off a long plane ride, is this the best we can do for our guests? Forget about the millions spent on advertising our Islands, spend the money on educating those in the hospitality business on courtesy. Make the visit to the Islands a pleasant stay in paradise, not one in purgatory.

SOCIETY

MOTORISTS DROVE BY AS DOG LAY ON FREEWAY

Wednesday morning at about 8:10 a.m. as I drove into town on H-1, I noticed to my horror that a beautiful large dog (reminded me of a Belgian herding dog) lay in the median of the freeway (on the left side), apparently dazed, at the Wai'alae exit. I prayed he would stay there and not move until help arrived, but I didn't know when help would arrive. All the cars were just driving by — I had to stop, I couldn't drive away and hope "someone else" would help.

I pulled my car to the right side of the road and called 911, hoping someone would stop and help me, but no one did.

I grabbed some rope from the truck and started to jog on the side of the freeway making sure I was safe — my goal was to save the dog from a terrible death and save a human being from having to experience that trauma.

Thank goodness a police officer drove by and rescued the dog. Upon reflection, however, I ask you, my fellow human beings, why did you not stop? Why did you just continue to drive? Why did you turn away?

Stopping your car, helping an animal, yes, might have caused you to be late for work and traffic to have stopped — but that would have been only momentarily — traffic was not going fast and with sound judgment you could have helped.

Do not turn away when the most innocent in our society need your help.

ENVIRONMENT

STUDENT'S CHALLENGE: RECYCLE, DON'T WASTE

One of the biggest issues people have is that they don't recycle enough. Millions of resources (plastic, glass, paper, etc.) are thrown away only to be left to rot and take up huge amounts of space in landfills.

Wasting shouldn't be a modern habit. If the whole nation could take some time to recycle, then our environment would become cleaner; it would lessen landfills and the need for new resources.

And who wouldn't want cash? Recycling cash-redeemable resources will give consumers some of their money back.

The monthly collection of plastic bottles and aluminum cans and the monthly visits to recycling drop-offs can give an average person $20 to $30. My family accumulates more than $40 worth of cans and bottles every two months.

Some of my high school's classes have recycling bins for bottles. Students always put their bottles in there instead of the trash. If the government can create a mass recycling system with more recycling drop-off sites and green bins next to public and home trash bins, then I'm sure people will recycle more.

C'mon, everyone! We have to start using the most out of our resources. Is it so wrong to recycle?