Sunset success may be Wai'anae's dawn

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer

Until now, the popular Sunset on the Beach events have been more about good will than good profits since the city started organizing them during the economic downturn caused by the Sept. 11 attacks.

Valerie Luna and her daughter, Adrian Marie, were among a turnout estimated as high as 60,000 for last weekend's two-day Sunset on the Beach event in Ma'ili. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Yes, I do think this was an economic turning point in Wai'anae," said Carol Aiwohi, owner of Aunty's Seaside Cafe in Ma'ili, one of 14 food-booth operators at last weekend's beach bash.

Crowd estimates for the two days have ranged as high as 60,000 people from within and outside the region — three times the attendance at any of the other Sunset on the Beach events that started in Waikiki, and nearly twice the population of the Wai'anae Coast. And that's a lot of happy people with loose change to fork over for teri chicken, popcorn and American flags.

Aiwohi, who had worked other two-day events at Ma'ili Beach Park before the Sunset event was brought there, said experience from those enterprises guided her in estimating how much food to prepare for sale. Like virtually every other food vendor there last weekend, she was in for a surprise.

"We prepped food enough for two days — and we ran out completely by 6 p.m. Saturday," said Aiwohi.

To be better supplied for the next day, her crew scrambled to clean out the restaurant freezer, "bought every chicken we could find at the market" and stayed up all night prepping for Sunday — only to run out of food again before Day 2 came to an end.

How much more did Aiwohi take in than at any previous Wai'anae event?

"Ten times more," said Aiwohi, still sounding stunned on Tuesday.

Equally important, she said, is how her cafe has gained new customers who tasted her food for the first time last weekend.

The community, economically beleaguered in the best of times, has been suffering since Sept. 11, along with the dozens of small fishing boats and the Wai'anae small-boat harbor's charters that depended primarily on Japanese tourists for business.

There have been layoffs at some businesses; others have struggled to stay in operation. Several stores at Wai'anae Mall have been on the brink and owners throughout have been cutting expenses and hoping things will improve.

That made Sunset look even better through Wai'anae eyes.

"We need to do this here every month," said Laurie Shiroma, co-owner of Uncle Lani's Poi Mochi Snack Shop, who had been apprehensive about the potential benefits of running a food booth at all before last weekend.

"This has boosted the morale of Wai'anae more than anything else," added Charmaine Na'auao-Ocasek, president of Uncle Lani's.

And Patty Teruya, the area resident who spearheaded the effort to bring Sunset on the Beach to the west coast of O'ahu, responded to recent criticism about the $300,000 it has cost the city to sponsor all the Sunset events, saying: "Tell any of those council members who don't want it that we'll be glad to take it over out here."

Obviously, a sea of change has occurred in Wai'anae.

Part of that change is that the focus of the event was fundamentally different from the usual happenings on the Wai'anae Coast, said Mark Suiso, one of the community organizers of last weekend's Sunset on the Beach in Ma'ili.

On previous occasions, he said, the emphasis had been on fund-raisers designed to benefit the needy. This time, the focus was support of local businesses, as opposed to soliciting money from them.

This approach was so foreign to the area's storefront operators, whom Suiso described as customarily low-key, even "shy," that many weren't sure what to make of it. Most went into last weekend's bash suspecting it would be yet another big ballyhoo up front with little to show for it afterward.

This time, though, said Suiso, many business operators heard a sound with an unfamiliar ring to it:

Ka-ching!

"Some stands made tons of money," he said. "Others didn't. We don't normally have many ways for these businesses to interact together. But in this setting, where you're right there face to face in an open area, people learned from others what works."

For example, when it was sunny on Saturday, sunglasses and sunscreen were purchased from vendors who furnished them. When it was windy the next day, flags began selling like hot cakes. When it became chilly during the evening big-screen movie attraction, hot chocolate did well for vendors savvy enough to think of putting that on their menu.

The point, said Suiso, is that vendors in the know were only too willing to lend their experience to help out their business colleagues.

There were great learning lessons, he said. Among them was the realization that one segment of the community can't succeed alone.

When businesses saw that such efforts can actually work, there was a communal attitude shift.

"The naysayers have disappeared," said Suiso. "There's a confidence now."

Whether that confidence will continue to flourish remains to be seen. For now, though, the memory of what happened last weekend is more than vivid. It's inspiring.

"Not only on a moneymaking level, but on a personal level, too," said Aiwohi. "Everybody was hugging and kissing. Customers were coming up and saying, 'You look so tired — can we help you?'

"Anytime you can have that many people out here on the beach in Wai'anae without one fight, without any drinking and without any trouble, then I think we have really done something."

After a pause, she added: "Actually, it made us feel good — that we could do something this excellent."

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.