Mall users caught in the middle
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
In February 2002, the city began "temporarily" removing public benches from the Fort Street Mall as part of an effort to clean up the area. The city said the benches were being monopolized by homeless people and drug dealers and removing the benches would encourage them to move on.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
In the 2 1/2 years since, the benches have not been replaced, leaving few options for the mall's take-out food customers to sit or elderly shoppers to rest. And homeless people are still using the mall.
A homeless man sleeps near two of the three remaining park benches at Fort Street Mall. Homeless still use the mall despite the removal of most of the benches, while take-out food customers and elderly shoppers have few options for a rest on the busy mall.
"There is no place to sit," said Margaret Fuss, 77. "I go down to the bank, to shop at Longs and do a lot of things down on the mall. I think it is a long way to walk. Especially carrying bags."
All of the benches between South Beretania and Hotel streets were removed in early 2002 followed by the incremental removal of all but three benches at South King Street, leaving about a quarter mile stretch on the mall with no place to sit. The mall from King Street to Queen Street and on to Merchant Street still has 26 benches and there is no problem with them being monopolized by homeless people.
Lynne Matusow, chairwoman of the Downtown Neighborhood Board, said the shortage of benches is discussed almost every month as residents become more frustrated and can't get any information on when the benches might be replaced.
"First, the benches were on a ship, then they were trying to figure out where they were going to put them and now we are getting nothing," Matusow said. "Now we are just being stonewalled.
"It's a situation where we have a problem we will probably never solve. We are not going to get rid of the homeless people. You just get rid of all of the amenities for all the law-abiding people."
Fort Street Mall is owned by the city and operated under rules similar to a public park — no drinking alcohol, no animals or vehicles, no bicycling, camping, littering, skateboarding or feeding the birds. The mall is closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily.
The mall has seen dramatic improvements in the past couple of years since the Business Improvement District took over most of the security and cleaning of the commercial strip and began holding public events to make the area more welcoming to customers. The area is cleaned and patrolled regularly.
There are now open markets selling fresh fruits, vegetables and plants. Handmade items draw both area residents and workers from their downtown offices, said Chris Nakashima-Heise, president of Business Improvement District.
City spokeswoman Carol Costa said the benches are not being replaced because of requests by the nonprofit organization and mall merchants and they will not be replaced until the Business Improvement District, landowners, merchants and Hawaii Pacific University give their consent.
"I guess they don't want our business then, do they?" Fuss said.
Despite what the city said, E. Rick Stepien, Hawaii Pacific University vice president of administration, said the college has no say in whether the benches stay or go and that it is strictly a city matter.
Nakashima-Heise acknowledged that the benches do present a problem for merchants, but said the Business Improvement District appreciates the elderly customers and the group never asked for the benches to be removed.
"They disappeared without our knowledge," Nakashima-Heise said. "The city has plans for replacing them with newer benches, but they never told us anything about what they are doing. One day they just took them and that's it. But, if we had the benches it is more of a problem. I wish we could find a way to solve it."
Costa said there are other places to sit on the mall. Shoppers can rest on concrete steps at Beretania Street, around a large planter box in the mall at Pauahi Street and at the tables in front of some of the small restaurants along the route.
Fuss said the planter box is too low and the tables are not really for the public.
"They belong to the restaurants," she said. "Some of them have a sign on them that it belongs to such and such a place."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.
