Council might ban personal property on city sidewalks

A bill being introduced by Honolulu City Council members is expected to make it easier for city officials to remove the property of the homeless and others from sidewalks and parks.

The bill, introduced by five Council members Wednesday, makes it illegal to store furniture, clothing, household items and other “personal property” placed on sidewalks, in parks, on streets and other “public property” that is owned, managed or maintained by the city.

Failure to remove personal property within 24 hours of a written notice would result in impoundment.

A person who wants to claim impounded property would be responsible for the cost of impoundment and storage. Items not picked up within 30 days would be either auctioned off or destroyed.

The bill would not apply to existing allowable uses on sidewalks and parks, such as vending or camping where permitted.

Nor would it apply to parked vehicles, which would still be governed by the city’s abandoned vehicle ordinance.

It is undecided who would issue the notices and remove the property, although it likely would be the Department of Facility Maintenance or a private vendor, said Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard, lead sponsor of the bill.

Honolulu police would not be charged with enforcing the bill, she said.

Gabbard said the bill is not designed to clear the streets of homeless people, but to ensure that sidewalks, parks and other city facilities are available for use by everyone.

“This bill only deals with improperly stored possessions and has nothing to do with people,” Gabbard said. “This is truly a safety and health issue dealing with material possessions.”

The measure is not designed to coincide with mid-November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative gathering in Waikiki, which will include President Barack Obama and 20 other world leaders, she said.

Expected to get its first airing at Wednesday’s Council meeting, it is not expected to be passed until December at the earliest.

The bill is the latest effort by Council members to take back control of the city’s sidewalks and parks. Complaints have been growing, especially in Chinatown and Moiliili, where the number of homeless encampments has increased steadily.

Last October, Mayor Peter Carlisle signed a bill banning people, tents and other large objects from blocking pedestrian access to city sidewalks in urban Honolulu during daylight hours.

But Honolulu Police Department officials said a lack of signs or markings delineating pedestrian use zones from where structures could be allowed make it difficult to enforce.

The new bill would repeal the portion of that ordinance relating to private property, but people would still need to follow the law pertaining to lying or sitting on public sidewalks, said Louise Kim McCoy, a Carlisle spokeswoman.

The city continues to work on establishing the first pedestrian use zones, McCoy said.

As for the new bill, the Carlisle administration “supports the concept of this bill” and will work with City Council members on the measure, McCoy said.

The bill introduced Wednesday is similar to a measure the previous Council attempted to pass last year.

That bill was shelved in committee. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Dan Gluck said that bill essentially made it “unlawful to be homeless and have any possessions of any kind.”

Gluck said the sole purpose of the bill would have been “to force homeless individuals to move from one place to another, making it more difficult for individuals to find and keep steady employment.

Greg Cuadra, chairman of the McCully/Moiliili Neighborhood Board, said he is frustrated by the growing homeless problem in his area, and welcomes the latest attempt to address it.

Though many homeless have moved away from the McCully-Moiliili Library, where they had congregated, there are now many more who have moved to the vicinity of Old Stadium Park. While the park now closes at night, many of the homeless simply sleep on the sidewalk just outside the park, and return the next morning.

“Sometimes you feel like you’re walking through their kitchen,” Cuadra said.

At Aala Park, where homeless campers line a large portion of the sidewalk along the intersection of North Beretania and Aala streets, word of the new proposal was not met well.

Tony “Catfish” Williams, 51, has been living along Aala Street for about two months and has already collected three tents, a full-size mattress, a lounge chair, coolers and cooking equipment.

“It’s wrong and it’s not feasible,” Williams said of the bill, noting that he would not want to see his valuables confiscated.

Vee Rodriguez, 51, showed the Star-Advertiser some photos of her family. If the snapshots were lost or confiscated, “I would never get them again,” she said. The photos give her “a flood of memories every time I look at them.”

Rodriguez, like others, said they have had their possessions taken away from them when they lived in other areas.

Star-Advertiser reporter Dan Nakaso contributed to this report.