Park penalty is excessive

An aggressive city ordinance aimed at prosecuting anyone entering a city park at night during closed hours has resulted in too many people ending up with criminal records. The City Council should change the ordinance to treat trespassers with a sanction similar to a parking ticket, rather than the current law making it a criminal offense with the possibility of jail time.

The ordinance was created long ago, during Mayor Frank Fasi’s administration, and was toughened in later years to deal with growing noise complaints.

Thousands of trespassers have been fined in District Court. Police have issued 5,420 citations at Oahu parks outside of Waikiki since January 2003 and 1,647 in Waikiki in just the past three years. Visitors, military and transients have accounted for one-fifth of the court’s criminal and traffic caseload.

The city Department of Parks and Recreation attempted to eliminate the problem last Friday when it began locking all of the city’s Waikiki public toilets during overnight hours. It also removed signs about its 24-hour restrooms at Kapiolani Park and Kuhio Beach. The move makes sense, since no one is supposed to be in most parks from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Darryl Miyahira says most of the strayers who go to court have ended up with criminal records for having crossed the line at any of all but 82 of the 300 city parks on Oahu.

Miyahira says at least half of the cases he sees weekly have involved residents who stayed in the parks too late or were walking through them.

"I realize what the intent of this law is, but at the same time we can’t have our residents walking from one side of the street to the other and ending up with a criminal record," Waikiki Neighborhood Board Chairman Bob Finley told the Star-Advertiser’s Allison Schaefers.

Alethea Rebman, president of the Kapiolani Park Preservation Society, is right in saying some sort of penalty is proper for being in the park after hours, "but people should not be facing jail time for being in a closed park."

The city ordinance states that being caught entering a park during closed hours can result in a fine of up to $500 or "imprisonment for not more than 30 days."

The law’s inclusion of putting an offender behind bars is what makes it a crime instead of a simple legal violation, according to William Bagasol, supervising deputy in the Office of the Public Defender.

Bagasol’s office has handled more than 2,500 cases in the past nine years, which he says has driven up public costs, overburdened the court system and aggravated too many people. Typical fines handled by his office have ranged from $25 to $50, he said.

Bagasol recommends that the potential punishment of imprisonment be stricken from the ordinance, and first offenders should be fined.

Just as automobile owners caught driving without insurance are fined for the first offense, nighttime park trespassers should not be risking jail time unless their actions warrant a criminal charge.

The ordinance obviously was aimed at keeping the homeless from turning parks into their shelters, but it hasn’t worked. Its main effect has been to aggravate people who were unaware of the potentially dire consequences of a criminal record.