Gun gallery goes bankrupt
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawai'i's largest indoor shooting range has sought bankruptcy protection to reorganize debts stemming from a 1997 buyout led by local investors.
Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club, a tourist attraction catering almost exclusively to Japanese visitors, filed for Chapter 11 earlier this week and said it will continue business as usual while negotiating to restructure about $800,000 in overdue payments owed to previous owners.
The business in Waikiki's Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center is one of several indoor gun ranges that sprang up in the late '80s and early '90s to tantalize tourists from Japan, where gun use is tightly regulated.
In recent years the industry has struggled with declining numbers of Japanese tourists, leading to a spate of closures including Honolulu Gun Club, U.S. Gun Club, Diamond Head Guns and Gun Club Magnum 2000.
According to Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau surveys, the percentage of Japanese tourists who visited a shooting range during their Hawai'i vacation fell from 16 percent in 1991 to 8 percent in 1996, the last year firearm shooting was included in the survey.
Reaction to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and SARS further hurt the visitor industry, and substantially reduced annual sales at Royal Hawaiian Shooting to roughly $2 million in the last two years, according to the company's bankruptcy filing.
Barbara Pascua, Royal Hawaiian Shooting president and general manager, said rebounding numbers of Japanese visitors and a stronger yen have made for a recovery of business which has returned to pre 9/11 levels in the past two months.
"We're actually doing really well," she said. "I think we're going to come out (of bankruptcy) stronger."
Royal Hawaiian Shooting was established in 1989 by 23 investors from the Mainland, Japan and Hawai'i. In 1997, nine investors led by a local group bought out the original partners. As part of the purchase price, the new owners issued notes for $800,000 that were to be paid to the sellers by last week.
The company said it was unable to make the payment, and hopes to resolve the debt by restructuring its finances through bankruptcy.
With three other shooting clubs in Waikiki, the industry is still competitive, according to Royal Hawaiian Shooting, which attracts 80 to 100 customers on a typical day.
Pascua said about 95 percent of customers are from Japan, with the remainder from other countries with strong gun controls like Australia and Canada.
For Japanese visitors, firing a gun is an especially novel attraction because Japan has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the world, prohibiting handgun ownership by civilians and limiting rifle or shotgun use to a relative few under strict licenses.
Royal Hawaiian Shooting, with a 17-lane range, offers a variety of weapons to fire, from .22-caliber pistols and rifles ($39 for about 50 shots) to more powerful weapons such as the .357 and .44 Magnum ($95 for about 50 shots), plus specialty firearms like the Walther PPK of James Bond fame.
Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.
