The author of a bill that would ban sitting and lying on sidewalks in Oahu business districts outside Waikiki — scheduled for a final vote Wednesday — says he wants to pull the measure back for further work.
Councilman Ron Menor said the latest draft of Bill 48 contains too many areas that either are not truly business districts or otherwise might not be affected by sidewalk dwellers.
Menor, an attorney, said he and city attorneys say those factors could result in the bill not being able to pass constitutional muster.
"I want to draft a bill that is narrowly focused on commercial and business areas where obstruction of public sidewalks is a problem," Menor told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday.
"The (current draft) of the bill is overly broad and needs to be substantially revised," he said. The draft includes areas that are outside of business or commercial business districts, he said.
Additionally, Menor said, he wants the Caldwell administration to show evidence that there is adequate shelter space to house those who might choose to move from the streets into area accommodations for the homeless.
Menor said Council Chairman Ernie Martin has indicated he will support his request for a deferral.
Menor said he expects the bill to return to the Council at its November meeting.
"I don’t believe there’s a need to rush this important issue," Menor said. "My position is if we’re going to pass this kind of far-reaching measure, it has to be done right. We need to take as much time as necessary to come up with a bill that ultimately is legally defensible."
The bill makes it a petty misdemeanor to sit or lie down on public sidewalks from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily in "areas zoned for commercial and business activities" and are designated specifically in the bill.
The measure is patterned after Seattle’s sit-lie ordinance, which affects areas in that city’s downtown business sections.
The number of Oahu neighborhoods to be included in Menor’s "sit-lie" bill has increased steadily as Council members have added areas from their own districts to meet their constituents’ concerns.
Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, who sought an amendment adding areas from her district, said at the Sept. 18 Planning and Zoning Committee meeting that she didn’t like any sit-lie bills. "But I have to protect the people that live in the district, the businesses that are there," she said. "I feel it’s my duty as their Council member to include those areas."
Menor’s original bill listed six zones where the sit-lie ban would apply. Following the September committee meeting, the bill called for 14 zones in 11 regions. They included Chinatown, downtown, McCully-Moiliili, Kailua, Waipahu, Kalihi, Haleiwa, Wahiawa, Kaneohe, Waimanalo and Ala Moana-Sheridan.
At least three "floor draft" versions of the bill were expected to be introduced Wednesday — from Council members Kobayashi, Stanley Chang and Carol Fukunaga.
At the September committee meeting, city Managing Director Ember Shinn and city attorneys told committee members they should urge business owners who want the ban in their neighborhoods to submit testimony.
Shinn said Waikiki business interests showed up at Honolulu Hale to provide "strong, anecdotal evidence" about how their businesses were being affected adversely by street dwellers impeding access to their stores.
City attorneys said they expect any sit-lie laws to be challenged, Shinn said.
A 24-hour, Waikiki-only sit-lie bill became law Sept. 16 after Mayor Kirk Caldwell signed it.
Caldwell said he supported Menor’s islandwide measure and would sign it so long as attorneys were OK with it passing legal muster.
The same homeless advocates who opposed the Waikiki bill have voiced the same strong objections to the islandwide bill.
Kathryn Xian, executive director of the nonprofit Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, said an online petition urging Council members to not pass the bill contains more than 1,100 signatures.
Sit-lie bills "are already proving to be ineffective and just succeed in pushing the houseless into different districts," Xian said in an email to Council members Tuesday.
"Outlawing their existence in various districts via sit-lie not only is costly and ineffective, as other cities have proven, it is unconstitutional in practice according to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals," she said.
