Question: Can you help us take a rooster out of the Lusi­tana Street area, near the Queen’s Medical Center? It’s been crowing at 1 a.m. for the past 12 weeks! I called the Hawaiian Humane Society, but they said they don’t do anything with roosters anymore and referred me to Royos Farm. But I can’t get in touch with Royos Farm.

Answer: We called Royos Farm, which has the $60,000-a-year city contract to deal with nuisance/noisy roosters, at 841-2384, and someone immediately answered.

We receive many complaints about nuisance roosters/chickens, so we’ll explain what help you can expect.

You need to be able to tell where the rooster is — and hope that it’s coming from someone’s private residential property.

If the problem can’t be resolved with two visits to the property owner with the roosters, the case will be referred to the Hono­lulu Police Department “for possible issuance of a citation in violation of the animal nuisance ordinance,” said Dennis Kami­mura, administrator of the city Motor Vehicle and Licensing Division.

The contract does not cover public or nonresidential property.

In those cases, “The public or nonresidential property owner is responsible for the cost of removal operations,” Kami­mura said.

Royos Farm will assist private residential property owners by providing traps to capture feral chickens on their property.

But “if the feral chickens are in someone else’s property, they will not force the private residential property owner to accept the responsibility for and monitor the traps,” Kami­mura said.

In that case the matter could be referred to HPD.

Mahalo

To Brian Ward, the hero who prevented a tragedy from happening when a tree fell on a city bus as it was traveling on Pali Highway on March 16, knocking the driver unconscious. I was lunching with friends at Kailua Palace a few days later, after attending a church memo­rial. In walks Brian. Though I recognized him on the local TV news coverage of TheBus incident, I never made the connection. He is an acquaintance of all of us who frequent the Palace. I never knew that he was homeless. He is always clean, groomed and dressed. Polite, humble and well spoken — who would have guessed!

Anyway, he popped in to grab something to eat, and everyone there applauded, cheered him and gave him hugs and pecks on the cheek. He blushed. He said, “I just did what came instinctively — I reacted. I didn’t think the driver was alive under the mess I removed from him. Thank God, he was!”

We all assume he will be recognized at some future date by the city as a true hero and lifesaver. We wondered whether this gentle person could possibly receive a “bus pass for life.” After all, he did avoid what could have been a tragedy. We’re sure this would not affect our already stressed city budget. This pass would also identify and honor him to our great bus drivers! — Mackie Pratt and Friends at Kailua Palace

Great idea. We passed your suggestion on to the city.

———

Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd.,Honolulu, HI 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.