Opponents of a proposal to put in place the city’s "sit-lie" ordinance in business districts across Oahu plan to hold rally at Honolulu Hale starting shortly before midday Thursday to urge Mayor Kirk Caldwell to veto the bill passed by the Honolulu City Council.
In an email to sit-lie opponents and the media, rally organizer Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, said: "This law unfairly targets the most vulnerable in our society, the houseless, and does not solve issues of houselessness but rather prolongs poverty and hardship for those struggling to survive."
Also, a petition with more than 1,100 signatures asking that Caldwell reject Bill 48 will be delivered, said Xian, whose group combats human trafficking.
In addition, the mayor will get a copy of a University of California Berkeley School of Law study that concludes there is no meaningful evidence to suggest sit-lie legislation improves business activity or helps homeless people gain access to services. The study surveyed key stakeholders in 19 jurisdictions, including seven in California, where sit-lie legislation was in place.
If Caldwell vetoes the bill, the Council, which approved it with a 7-2 vote on Friday, could choose to override the action, but it would require six of the nine members to rebuff him.
A law that went into effect in September bans sitting and lying on public sidewalks in Waikiki 24 hours a day. Bill 48 would expand the reach of the ordinance to include 15 business districts, with the ban in effect from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. The added districts would be in specified boundaries in Chinatown, downtown Honolulu, McCully-Moiliili, Kailua, Wahiawa, Ala Moana-Sheridan, Pawaa, two sections of Kaneohe, Waimanalo, Kapahulu, Waialae, Kahala, Aina Haina and Niu Valley, and two sections of Hawaii Kai.
Caldwell is attending the National League of Cities conference in Austin, Texas, and won’t return until Friday, mayoral spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said. The mayor is expected to take action on the bill by Dec. 2.
Caldwell said last week that he will sign the measure so long as city attorneys say it is legally defensible.
Councilman Ron Menor, the bill’s original author, has raised concerns that the measure could be more vulnerable to legal challenges the more his colleagues tinkered with it to include new areas in the ban. Menor said if merchants and others offer evidence that supports the need for the ban, such routine camping on sidewalks that reduces customer traffic and impedes pedestrian access to sidewalks, the measure is more likely to meet legal muster.
Daniel Gluck, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, submitted written testimony to the Council warning that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined "criminalization of basic human functions in the absence of options for shelter violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment."
Gluck said that additionally, discriminatory enforcement of sit-lie bans "could give rise to an equal protection challenge."
Broder Van Dyke said that constitutional concerns prompted Caldwell to endeavor to limit the initial implementation of the sit-lie prohibition to Waikiki, where businesses and tourist industry leaders had urged the Council to take action to address problems related to the area’s homeless population.
