Owners of Oahu businesses who want a ban against sitting and lying down on sidewalks in front of storefronts in their neighborhoods need to step forward and argue that they should be included in islandwide legislation.

A bill expanding the ban the Waikiki ban on lying and sitting on city sidewalks to 10 other business districts on Oahu was given a preliminary OK by the City Council Zoning and Planning Committee on Thursday.

But Bill 48 author Ron Menor warned that he will ask colleagues to take out any areas where there is not substantial evidence showing that businesses are adversely affected by people on sidewalks in front of storefronts. The latest draft already dropped three areas — Haleiwa, Waipahu and Kalihi — where "there was not sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the obstruction of public sidewalks adjacent to businesses is a problem," Menor said.

Of the 10 remaining areas, business leaders have yet to come forward to offer compelling evidence that the bill is needed in McCully, Wahiawa, Ala Moana/Sheridan, Kaneohe, Waimanalo, Kapahulu and Waialae, he said. "If the Council is going to include all of those areas, we need more evidence that there’s a need for the sit-lie restrictions to apply to those areas."

As Menor’s colleagues have sought in recent weeks to include business neighborhoods in their own Council districts, he and city attorneys repeatedly warned that the bill could withstand constitutional muster only if it can be shown that each of the specified areas is adversely affected.

At least a half-dozen Chinatown-area merchants and business leaders told the committee Thursday to include the entire neighborhood from Vineyard Boulevard to the ocean.

Liana Benn, manager of Royal Kitchen, said she and her employees worry that homeless pushed out of Waikiki and elsewhere will flock to the River Street area fronting her manapua shop. That would discourage customers, including schoolchildren and tourists, from visiting the shop and other businesses in the Chinatown Cultural Plaza complex.

A sit-lie ban covering Waikiki took effect Sept. 16. The Honolulu Police Department reported 15 citations and 277 warnings issued for violations through Oct. 8.

Scott Morishige, executive director of advocacy group PHOCUSED, questioned whether the ordinance has accomplished the Caldwell administration’s "compassionate disruption" goal of nudging street people into shelters. There appears to be an uptick in the number of homeless gathering at a large encampment in lower Kakaako, Morishige said. Meanwhile, vacancy rates at Oahu shelters have remained relatively steady in recent months.

Zoning Committee members Breene Harimoto and Kymberly Pine, who opposed the Waikiki sit-lie bill, also voted against Menor’s broad ban Thursday. They said Morishige’s testimony offered evidence that sit-lie laws are failing to lure the homeless into shelters.

While the Waikiki sit-lie law is in effect 24 hours, the islandwide, business district ban would apply from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.