Dune buggy venture gets city’s approval

City officials have approved the registration of gas-powered, low-speed vehicles on Oahu after initially denying a startup dune buggy rental business on the North Shore the license to begin operations.

Matt Brown and his wife, Heather, said they invested nearly $1.4 million to open a rental shop in Haleiwa based on an email from a city official stating there should be no problem getting the business approved.

The Texas couple moved to the islands in January to open Aloha Buggies.

After they had shipped a half-dozen buggies to Honolulu, the city Division of Motor Vehicles, Licensing and Permits told them that they wouldn’t be able to register the buggies because state law doesn’t allow gas-powered, low-speed vehicles on public streets, though low-speed electric vehicles are acceptable. They had already moved forward with plans to purchase 36 low-speed vehicles, or LSVs, each costing about $15,000. City officials said the person who had sent the initial email, saying the business would have no problem, had since retired and was wrong to say what he did.

Brown then contacted more than a dozen state and city officials, including Gov. David Ige and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, but said no one was able to resolve the situation. Instead, he said they told him to “sue the city or contact the news.”

So he did the latter. Following a June 24 story by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the city, in an apparent turnaround, said Wednesday it approved the company’s registration on July 10.

“The Department of Customer Services sought a legal opinion regarding the interpretation of existing statutes, and concluded that the vehicles, owned by Aloha Buggies, can be registered, provided that the owner can provide information from the manufacturer documenting that the vehicles are certified to meet federal motor vehicle safety standards,” the city said in a press release.

The Browns, who have been trying to launch the startup for six months, spent more than $500,000 on the business and $100,000 in moving and living expenses, and committed to investing another $700,000 for additional buggies.

“It is with great excitement that we received this approval and we look forward to running our vehicle rental business,” Brown said. “We now have the arduous task of getting creative with launching our company on little to no budget. We are at a bit of a disadvantage from when we first arrived here (financially speaking). However it works out, you can be sure that we will give it everything we’ve got.”

The company, which opened earlier this year for a week before shutting down, will reopen on Monday and has plans to offer the dune buggies in the Waikiki area. The vehicles, however, are not authorized to be driven off-road.

“Our bottom line is to ensure the public safety of both those who rent these vehicles and those who share public roads with these specialized cars,” said Sheri Kajiwara, the city’s director of customer services, in a news release Wednesday. “We are very careful when we allow the registration of vehicles that test the limits of our existing statutes.”