Waikiki restrooms need better care

Tourist attractions don’t draw visitors by the sanitation of their public restrooms, but Waikiki beach is losing some of its world appeal because of their untidiness. The increased number of the homeless adding to the facilities’ users has brought expressions of disgust to a point where attention is needed to spruce up the facilities up on a more-frequent basis.

The city has closed four of its five Waikiki beach restrooms at night, which Gary Cabato, the city’s parks and recreation director, said has helped reduce vandalism — but use by the homeless has continued to be a problem. All five facilities, he said, "are vandalized regularly to different extents such as broken toilet paper dispensers, graffiti, intentionally clogged toilets, broken toilet seats."

Cabato told the Star-Advertiser’s Allison Schaefers that city managers inspect them monthly, city superintendents visit weekly, city supervisors inspect them daily and Cabato checks them out himself every six weeks. Still, those inspections seem to be making scant difference, judging from the disgusted reaction of users.

At four state restrooms in the area of Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, which had been open at all hours, public use is now limited from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. "because of severe problems with homeless persons who were camping in the restrooms and subsequent complaints by harbor tenants that they were harassed and locked out of the restroom," said Deborah Ward, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Hilton Hawaiian Village was required to build a public bathroom on the beach access Kahanamoku Street in return for approval of its Grand Waikikian development. It is one of two Hilton public restrooms open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, but they are hard to find since they are not posted on their doors as restrooms and are located in back of a fake-rock wall behind Hilton’s Paradise Pool. Granted, homeless people in the area may be a chronic problem, but the city can’t let Hilton off the hook for not providing something as basic as signage to let residents and visitors alike know that the facility is for public use.

A letter writer to the Star-Advertiser suggests that the governor and mayor ask Singapore’s prime minister how to make the restrooms clean and healthy. Fodor’s points out that Singapore’s "vigilant attendants are stationed at most public facilities and the widespread installation of self-flushing toilets helps maintain cleanliness." Entry for relief is 10 to 20 cents.

Hawaii is not about to charge people to use public restrooms — but why not try to replicate Singapore’s famously extraordinary level of operation and upkeep? Waikiki is, after all, a worldwide, world-class tourist destination. With that designation comes high expectations, and responsibilities, that no one should take lightly. The state and city must increase their stewardship to the level where Waikiki’s public restrooms are not an issue because they’re filthy or in disrepair, but that they recede as a non-issue because they’re adequate.