EDITORIAL
All is not fair on the North Shore swells

After being perhaps too flexible in the scheduling of North Shore contests — and incurring the wrath of recreational surfers who complained they were denied access to the season's best breaks because of back-to-back surf meets — the city is now playing by its own rules.

And that has resulted in some sacrifices.

Now that the city's Parks and Recreation Department is limiting the number of permits it issues for North Shore water contests, the event schedule for January and February is full.

In the process, two veteran Banzai Pipeline bodyboarding events have been denied permits. Naturally, bodyboarders are up in arms and the contest organizers want to know why their events, which have taken place every year since the 1980s, can't be fitted in.

We're not advocating that the city make an exception, unless, of course, someone isn't playing fair. After all, we asked them to play by their own rules.

What concerns us is the future of North Shore watersports contest scheduling because we've hit a point where the old lax system is alienating recreational surfers and the new rigid by-the-book approach is excluding some veteran bodyboarding events — at least this season.

Mayor Jeremy Harris is proposing a system overhaul. Already, he has moved the surf contest permit process out of the parks department and into the city's Office of Economic Development.

We, too, recognize that surf contests hold great promotional value for Hawai'i. But at the same time, we don't want contests to dominate the North Shore's best winter breaks and shut out recreational surfers.

The rules — including criteria for which contests get priority — clearly need to be revised. At this junction, it would be smart for the Harris administration to gather input from every corner of the watersports community, and set a policy that balances commercial and recreational interests.