First Friday factions clash

Members of the Chinatown community gathered Wednesday with several city agencies to hash out differences between two factions clashing over the future of the popular First Friday event.

The city Department of Transportation Services requested the meeting to determine whether city buses should be rerouted from Hotel Street during the event Friday, said Greg Nishioka, administrator of the Honolulu Liquor Commission, which hosted the meeting.

About 30 people, including bar and gallery owners from Chinatown, members of the police and fire departments, the Liquor Commission and the city transportation department, attended the meeting.

"The bottom line is that it’s getting dangerous on Hotel Street," said Wayne Yoshioka, director of the Department of Transportation Services. He said the crowds are getting out of hand, which forced the city to divert buses last month.

Friction over the monthly event centers on a block party organized by Indigo Restaurant and Kapua Productions on First Fridays, which closes Nuuanu Avenue and allows people paying money to drink alcohol in the street from 6-11 p.m.

Members of the Arts District Merchants’ Association argued Wednesday that businesses in the area developed First Friday over the past eight years by organizing galleries to schedule openings on the same day and helping bars prosper from the crowds. They opposed one bar taking advantage of the promotion of First Friday, when 8,000 people descend on Chinatown between 5 p.m. and 3 a.m.

Because the association’s members opposed Indigo’s block party on Nuuanu Avenue, they stopped donating money to the merchants’ association to pay for special-duty police officers, who are needed to control traffic when the buses are rerouted.

As a result, the merchants’ association didn’t hire officers or request the buses be rerouted on First Friday last month. After Indigo’s block party ended about 10 p.m., some 3,000 people were pushed off Nuuanu Avenue and spilled onto Hotel Street, said Liquor Commission Administrator Greg Nishioka.

Without the usual safety measures in place, bus supervisors were forced to stand in the street, telling drivers to mind the crowds and slow down, and eventually, reroute the buses from Hotel Street, Yoshioka said. Police, concerned about safety, cleared the street of people.

Nishioka told the group that he wanted them to find a resolution before drastic action is needed.

J.J. Niebuhr, president of the merchants’ association, said after the concerns raised with last month’s event, the association requested the buses be rerouted this Friday and hired at least 10 special-duty officers for safety.

He said the association has absorbed the cost of ensuring safety during the popular event over the years and is opposed to a street closure where liquor is sold on the street, taking away business from nearby bars.

Judith Rod, who organizes street parties for Indigo, said the restaurant owner initiated the block party to bring back the cultural aspect of First Friday, such as with the moon festival block party in September and the international festival Friday. She said the block party also supports the nonprofit Chinatown Business and Community Association.

"CBCA and Indigo Inc., we just want to do the right thing, and we want to give back to Chinatown," she said.

But Eric Walden, vice president of the merchants’ association, said businesses and the community don’t support a private block party on First Friday because it keeps people within the block, hurting other businesses, such as his art gallery, which lost about 50 percent of its revenue last First Friday.

"It kills the whole spirit of what this event is," he said.

Chu Lan Schubert-Kwock, of the Chinatown Business and Community Association, said it seems the merchants’ association wants control of all the festivals for their interests.

"I think they just have to learn how to share and that they just feel that they own it because they have been at it for so long," she said. "I think they also are impeding free enterprise."

She said Kapua and Indigo have donated to the community association to improve Chinatown while the merchants’ association has not.

Indigo’s next block party after Friday’s will be in December. The general area is between Nimitz Highway, Bethel, River and Beretania streets.