Posted on: Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Proposed rooster ban on Maui debated

By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor

WAILUKU, Maui — The familiar debate over the right to a peaceful night's sleep vs. preserving local traditions was revived during a Maui County Council committee hearing yesterday on a proposed ban on roosters and other fowl in residentially zoned areas.

Councilman Robert Carroll of Hana is author of the proposed bill, which would prohibit the raising of roosters, chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and peacocks in areas with residential, zero lot line residential, duplex and apartment zoning.

Maui is the only county in the state that does not place restrictions on roosters in residentially zoned areas. On Kaua'i, there is a four-bird limit; on O'ahu it's two. Roosters are banned altogether in residentially zoned areas on the Big Island.

The issue has been raised before on Maui but failed to hatch legislation, largely because of the impassioned pleas of bird owners defending what they call cultural traditions of raising hens and roosters for food and as a hobby.

At the afternoon session of yesterday's hearing attended by about 60 people, the first 20 speakers were almost evenly split on the subject.

The conflict has been most acute in Kahului, a central Maui community originally built for plantation workers but now home to a cross-section of working-class families as well as old-timers.

Rooster noise is the No. 1 subject of complaints to the Kahului Town Association, according to association president and retired assistant police chief James Lawrence.

"I have received so many complaints from people so angry, they want to fight with their neighbors," said Lawrence, who has lived in the same house since 1954. There is no longer a place for roosters "in a town where people work all day and expect to get some sleep at night and don't."

Kahului resident Oliver Cummings, whose neighbor has 13 roosters, was one of several who spoke emotionally while testifying about the health impacts caused by stress and lack of sleep due to rooster crowing. "I got nothing against the birds. Just put them where they belong. It's just a nuisance," he said.

Longtime game-bird proponent Alton DeGama of Lahaina said a total ban on roosters would be too harsh, especially for residents of Lana'i and Moloka'i who are more reliant on a subsistence lifestyle. He said roosters also are a part of island living.

"We lose this, no aloha," he said. "This is a rural, tropical island. Roosters crow, dogs bark, cats cry — this is the nature of animals."

Darren Feliciano of Kahului said the proposed ban would open the door to other restrictions. "Pretty soon you're going to tell us how much kids you can have because the kids make noise," he said.

Feliciano, who lives in a residential subdivision, said outside the hearing room: "The way I look at it, Hawai'i is all country."

Aimee Anderson, animal-control supervisor with the Maui Humane Society, said that while the debate over roosters often takes an ethnic or cultural context, it is really about urbanization and "the expectation of one's quiet enjoyment of property."

Peacocks, not crowing roosters, are what Barry Rivers and his family wake up to in the middle of the night in Ku'au. After sharing an ear-splitting imitation of a peacock call, Rivers expressed support for the bill.

In comments before public testimony, county Planning Director Michael Foley expressed concerns that the bill would make land-use inspectors responsible for enforcing the bird ban. Foley said enforcement would be better left in the hands of the county's animal-control officers who are suitably trained.