Posted on: Friday, January 18, 2002

Punahou carnival makes some security adjustments

By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

In reaction to a stabbing incident at the Punahou School Carnival last year, event planners have slightly changed the hours of operation to close earlier at night and to perhaps lessen the possibility of crime.

Bonnie Louise Judd, director of communications for the carnival, said the event has been shifted a half-hour earlier and will end at 11 p.m. this year. Ample security measures are in place, she said.

"We don't discuss the particulars of security," Judd said. "We always have a lot of security for carnival and I think the incident last year was very well contained because we did. It is a safe family thing and we want to keep it that way. There is the security you see and then there is security you don't see."

Last year, two 15-year-old Roosevelt High School students were attacked at the carnival at about 9 p.m., and one was hospitalized with multiple stab wounds. Police stopped the fight not long after it started and arrested two adults and two juveniles. Possible charges are still pending, according to Jim Fulton of the city prosecutor's office.

The Punahou carnival began in 1932 and draws thousands of people to the private campus. Police said that with any event of this size, disturbances will occasionally happen, but it does not mean people should be afraid to attend. Police will have plainclothes and uniformed officers at the event.

Judd said an estimated 50,000 people attended the carnival the night after the fight. There were no further incidents and the event grossed about $1.6 million.

At one time, Honolulu had several large school carnivals with rides and entertainment to raise money for school projects and scholarships, but Punahou has remained the most enduring. In the '80s and early '90s, McKinley High and Iolani School had major carnivals, but discontinued them because of economic, liability and security reasons.

Iolani School communications director Kathy Chong said that their carnival was eliminated a decade ago but that a family fair is held each year.

"Security did have to be a lot tighter back then," Chong said. "We still have our security concerns and we still hire police officers, but our family fair is for a lot younger kids and is more family oriented now. The focus is not so much on rides."

McKinley High vice principal John Hammond served on the school's final carnival planning committee when the event was canceled more than 10 years ago.

"It wasn't economically feasible for us anymore. That was the bottom line," Hammond said. "You started to crunch the numbers and you quickly realized that the amount of money we were able to make on the carnival, you could make that much money on other fund-raisers with a heck of a lot less effort and a considerable amount less liability."

Punahou, with its tremendous support through the years from alumni such as the late E.K. Fernandez and Maurice J. Sullivan of Foodland, as well as parents, has been able to make a profit from the carnivals.

Hammond said that toward the end, security became more of a concern.

"We never had a major problem until the last couple of years," Hammond said. "We never had a major gang-related incident, but we could see it was getting worse. Each year we hired more security."

Reach James Gonser at 535-2431 or jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.