Walmart posts security outside Keeaumoku store

The Walmart store on Keeaumoku Street has increased security, posting guards on the sidewalk of Makaloa Street during the overnight hours when the strip bars and hostess bars across the street close.

It’s not clear if the guards are a response to an increase in crime in the area or an increase in homeless people in the area.

A spokesman for Walmart said the company is constantly evaluating its security systems, but does not discuss specifics of its security plans.

Larry Hurst, the chairman of the Ala Moana-Kakaako Neighborhood Board, who lives on Elm Street a few blocks away from Walmart, said he’s seen a reduction in violent crimes since 2013, when a series of stabbings, gang fights and sex assaults focused attention on problems in the Keeaumoku area.

Hurst, who also walks the area two times a week as part of a neighborhood watch patrol, said there are still problems with drunks leaving the bars, vandalism, drug dealing and young men loitering in parks and parking lots near Walmart, which is open 24 hours.

“It’s almost like between Sheridan and Keeaumoku, that block of Makaloa is kind of scary,” Hurst said.

He’s also seen an increase in homeless people recently.

“Between Makaloa and Sheridan, there’s a little spit of land where a homeless camp is,” Hurst said.

“I think it’s because of the homeless,” said Kevin Lee, who works at Pony Taxi on Makaloa Street. Lee said homeless in the area sleep on the steps of the store, urinate and throw trash in the street.

Customers and workers at bars and restaurants on Makaloa Street said they think the street is basically safe, but there have been reports of purse snatching.

“It’s better for the girls (to have security),” said Peter Kim, who works at a bar on Makaloa Street.

Takuma Suga, a waiter at Restaurant Aki on Makaloa Street, said he thinks it’s a good idea to have visible security when people leave bars.

“There are a lot of bars around here,” he said.

Saturday evening, before the security guards came on duty, a homeless man sat on the steps of the emergency exit of the store on Makaloa Street.

The guards have been posted for about a month between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at the exits in the back of the store and can call police if they see criminal activity.

On Friday afternoon, police reported that a Keeau­moku Street-area business was robbed at about 4:45 p.m. by a man and woman in their 20s who brandished weapons.

Since July 11, police have responded to about 14 theft cases and an auto theft case near Walmart, according to a crime report posted on the honolulupd.org website.

The website does not provide information on violent crimes, but in the past year police reported that they arrested at least three people for assaults, including a 27-year-old homeless man arrested on March 3 for the alleged assault of a police officer near the Keeaumoku Walmart and a 54-year-old homeless woman arrested in the assault of a police officer who stopped her for shoplifting at Walmart in July 2014.

On July 1, officers arrested a 64-year-old McCully man for allegedly punching another man and trying to run down a security guard while attempting to flee from a Keeaumoku Street parking lot.

Honolulu police did not respond to written questions about crimes in the area that were sent by email early Friday afternoon.