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When Evan Weber was elected to the Kailua Neighborhood Board last year, he knew the first thing he wanted to tackle was getting soap back in island bathrooms. It was there when he was kid, he said, and its disappearance over the years bothered him.

“It’s pretty important for public safety and health that people wash their hands,” he said.

In the city’s view, soap may be more trouble than it’s worth. Through either carelessness or vandalism, it could end up on the floor and cause a slip and fall.

“Everybody wants to wash their hands, but I can guarantee you, we’ve got to look at the bigger picture,” Kanani Pule, the maintenance supervisor for Ala Moana Regional Park, told Civil Beat.

There’s a lot of bad behavior in Oʻahu’s more than 200 outdoor restrooms, the parks department said, ranging from splashing water around to property damage. In one egregious case, Honolulu parks director Laura Thielen said someone smashed multiple toilets with a sledgehammer. 

Soap would only introduce more risk, they said.

“The people reading Civil Beat, I’m sure, are the type that can use a soap dispenser properly,” Thielen said. “But not everybody can.” 

Maintenance crews generally work 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., leaving most comfort stations unattended in the afternoons and evenings. 

The city has a hard enough time as it is maintaining the essentials — the toilets and sinks. Besides, since the pandemic, Thielen said, many people carry around hand sanitizer, and the city doesn’t hear many complaints about the lack of soap. 

However, Weber said he kept asking about it, and the neighborhood board passed a resolution in April calling for soap in all Oʻahu public restrooms. The city hasn’t agreed to that but it was willing to pilot the use of “vandal-proof” soap dispensers at Kailua Beach Park, which Thielen said is the second-most used park in the state after Waikīkī.

“What we’ve found is that when people talk about vandal-proof or ‘prison grade,’ you know, prisoners don’t carry sledgehammers,” Thielen said. “We’re having to deal with something that is difficult to understand.” 

Soap dispensers will soon be installed in a men’s and women’s bathroom in Kailua, Weber said.

“When these little things aren’t working in the government, in the way people interact with the government every day, whether it’s soap in bathrooms or potholes on roads, it makes people lose faith that the government can solve the bigger problems in our lives,” he said. “I’m grateful they’re giving this a try.” 

Marc Cimbal, an accountant who splits his time between Honolulu and New York, said the island should make soap available islandwide. He called the current state of the bathrooms “shocking.”

”One, there’s no soap. Two, they’re disgusting,” he said. “Not a good combination.”

Fix It! Update: In a recent Fix It! story about the missing lights at Honolulu’s Kauluwela Community Park we asking residents whether they wanted new court lights installed. Nine lights were taken down by the Department of Parks and Recreation in March 2021 due to safety concerns and the courts have been unlit ever since. Department spokesman Nate Serota said that residents reported that the lack of lighting had coincided with a decline in anti-social behavior at the park, but the city was open to hearing what residents wanted now.

So far, the survey has drawn 25 responses; 18 people say they want the lights back, seven are opposed. We’ll leave open until Jan. 1 and then call it, so get your votes in now.

Fix It!

Fix It! is a reader-driven column focused on solving everyday obstacles — the inoperable and the inefficient amenity, the mundane and major facility fail that escapes the attention of government agencies, but affects our quality of life.

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