������Ƶ

Waikiki hosts the highest number of festivals and parades on Oahu, leaving many frustrated by the frequent street closures and crowds. Less than 4 miles away, business owners in Chinatown look on in envy.

This year, the city received 38 permit applications for parades, festivals and other activities along Kalakaua Avenue, Waikiki’s main thoroughfare. These events can each attract more than 10,000 attendees — and some stretch, noisily, into the night.

It’s a different story in Chinatown, the site of revitalization efforts amid struggles with homelessness and public safety fears. Workers and residents there would like more street festivals to make the neighborhood more welcoming and help businesses thrive.

The dueling interests are colliding in a bill coming to the City Council that would limit the number of street festivals in Waikiki. As the measure advanced, Chinatown business owners and residents became alarmed that it could make it more difficult for their own neighborhood to host festivals.

Chinatown already has suffered casualties. Only about 15 permit applications were submitted for events there this year and six of those were canceled. That includes its flagship Halloween event — Hallowballoo — which usually lures thousands of people to local businesses but hasn’t been held the past two years because of an alcohol permit issue.

“That one day kind of makes up for three to four months of the year,” said Kelsie-Ann Suan-Kon, who manages Hank’s Cafe on Nuuanu Street and is a board member of I Love Chinatown Festivals. Her group used to organize festivals in the area but is slowly dissolving as its board members age, Suan-Kon said.

While the area has its share of events, including Chinese New Year celebrations and the Chinese Lunar New Year Parade, organizers said they also had to cancel the traditional Mardi Gras and Cinco De Mayo festivals this year because of cost.

Waikiki, meanwhile, can host up to 30 street festivals and parades a year, according to that incorporates long-running “legacy events” with mayoral waivers. Activities that fall under freedom of speech and expression such as the Solidarity March for Peace in January and the Honolulu Pride parade earlier this month are considered separately.

Bill 50 would festivals in Waikiki to six a year — almost half the number approved for 2024 — and says they need to be spread evenly throughout the year. That includes the legacy events that are street festivals, because they keep streets closed for much of the day. Parades, races and other activities would not count against that number.

The measure would also place new restrictions on street festivals islandwide, such as requiring enclosed beer gardens if a festival is selling alcohol.

But some technical details still need to be ironed out, including how to allocate festival profits and which events should be that have occurred for at least 15 consecutive years. Most of those occur in Waikiki, including Spam Jam and Aloha Festivals Hoolaulea.

Council Chair Tommy Waters introduced Bill 50 in August to target Waikiki, which is part of the area he represents. The international tourist haven known for its beaches, surfing and shopping, is considered a special district, with its own restrictions on activities.

Chinatown doesn’t have a limit on the number of festivals that could be held there, but residents fear language in the bill codifying restrictions on alcohol use will have a chilling effect on their events.

“It wouldn’t be prosperous for us,” Downtown-Chinatown neighborhood board chair Ernest Carvalho said. “It’s going to stop organizers and people wanting to do events there.”

The issue already has led to a stalemate between the city and Hallowballoo organizer Mark Tarone, who ended up canceling the event the past two years.

Tarone said the annual Halloween celebration attracted about 10,000 people in 2022 and attendees of legal drinking age were allowed to carry alcohol anywhere within the festival’s confines. He believes the restriction to fenced-in areas would not only reduce attendance but pose a risk of people getting crushed as happened in Seoul, South Korea, during Halloween 2022.

The city’s Department of Transportation Services already has begun started requiring fenced-in beer gardens the last couple years. The bill would codify the requirement.

City transportation head Roger Morton said he’s wary of fights breaking out if alcohol isn’t regulated enough. He believes liquor-controlled areas can reduce the risk.

“If the density of people is cheek-to-jowl and there’s open liquor on the streets, I think it can result in public disorder,” Morton said in testimony to the council last week.

Suan-Kon, the Hank’s Cafe manager, said cost is another reason it’s difficult to host street festivals and was why Cinco de Mayo was canceled this year.

Her events typically cost about $50,000 between hiring security, closing roads and getting supplies, and they barely break even, she said. Tarone said that Hallowballoo often costs him about $250,000.

Street closures have long been an issue in Waikiki, where a constant flow of visitors makes the area attractive for hosting big events like the Waikiki Street Jam, Aloha Festivals Hoolaulea Festival and the Honolulu Pride Parade.

These events and others took place this fall in the span of just over a month, closing Waikiki’s main thoroughfare to car traffic five times between Sept. 14 and Oct. 19.

The closures varied in duration. Some lasted just a few hours during the afternoon, while others stretched 10 hours until midnight or beyond. Traffic during October’s Honolulu Pride Parade backed up all the way to Ala Moana Center.

“I do appreciate the parades, but we have way too many of them,” Waikiki neighborhood board member Sarah Worth said.

Chinatown neighborhood leaders and business owners would be happy to have some of the festivals moved to their part of town to share the economic benefits.

David Millwood, whose organizes seven of Waikiki’s non-legacy street festivals, said it’s not that easy since Chinatown wouldn’t be able to attract the same number of attendees.

“The vendors will not make as many sales, and therefore they don’t want to pay as much for their booths,” he said.

Millwood said his for-profit events each cost about $40,000 to organize, yielding about a 100% profit. He said half of that profit goes to charities like Make-A-Wish Foundation, totalling about $150,000 in donations over the course of a year.

Rick Egged, who pushed for the City Council bill as the head of , thinks the issue has gotten more attention in the last few years as for-profit businesses have started hosting more events. Egged is also executive director of Aloha Festivals, which organizes two legacy events, and is head of the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association.

As written, the bill also would mandate that profits from any event on Oahu be directed toward the Waikiki Business Improvement District and Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association, a controversial part of the bill.

Egged said he did not request that part of the bill, and council members have said they would amend it so that it would apply only to Waikiki events. That would help allay the fears of Chinatown residents who want more events in their neighborhood. 

“I would love for them to bring it over to Chinatown,” Suan-Kon said.