Question: A home in our neighborhood puts on an extravagant flashing light display, complete with music, every holiday season. It attracts thousands of spectators and has become a nuisance to our community due to traffic, noise, illegal parking, trespassers and litter. Can anything be done? … They are putting up their decorations already!

Answer: We checked with the city Department of Customer Services, the Waikele Community Association, the Honolulu Police Department and the Mediation Center of the Pacific. Although we can’t offer an easy answer, we hope the information we found is helpful. We also emailed the homeowner who spearheads the sound-and-light spectacle, but received no response.

Don’t feel like a Grinch who is trying to steal Christmas. While lots of folks love the annual Anapau Place holiday show, others contend that the growing and highly publicized festivities are overwhelming the cul-de-sac and surrounding subdivision. Still others, like you, wish the homeowners would scale back altogether (that’s not happening) and leave such large attractions to commercial or governmental venues, not residential streets.

In past years about nine houses on Anapau Place have participated in the synchronized show, with 60,000 Christmas lights flashing and outdoor speakers resonating seven nights a week for about a month.

Waikele Community Association rules prescribe how early holiday decorations can be put up (30 days before the holiday) and how quickly they must be taken down (within 15 days afterward) but not the scope of the display, said WCA General Manager Malcolm Ching. The annual show is neither sanctioned nor prohibited by the association.

The WCA board did grant the participating Anapau homeowners a variance from those rules this year, allowing them to erect the display in September to accommodate filming for a Christmas lights contest, he said. However, decorations will be illuminated early only temporarily, to create an entry for the nationally televised contest, he said. After filming they are to go dark until the usual holiday season, he said.

The association board is well aware of traffic, parking and trespassing complaints related to the longtime tradition. “Last year was pretty bad because they didn’t plan it well enough,” said Ching, who has already heard from eight or so residents worried about this year. A similar number have called to support the event, he said.

Ching said the homeowner who organizes the event has promised to hire special-duty officers to direct traffic, and to take other steps to better manage the crowds. An HPD spokeswoman said that as of Wednesday there was no special-duty request pending for the address we provided.

Based on the organizer’s assurances, Ching expects the event to go smoother this year than last. In the event of violations, he advised residents to call police, not the homeowners association. A city official confirmed that noise, traffic, illegal parking, trespassing and other complaints should be directed to HPD.

It struck us while reviewing news stories, video and photographs of past events that there should be room for compromise. The solution isn’t a decibel reader, but the spirit of the season, among neighbors who coexist 12 months a year.

Perhaps the show could go on for two weeks, rather than a month, or run a shorter time each night? While polished video clips promoting the extravaganza were shot on an empty street, candid Facebook photos and video tell the fuller story, showing crowds filling the street, people blocking driveways and car after car creeping down the cul-de-sac.

The Mediation Center of the Pacific is available to help, offering affordable intervention as long as both parties are willing to participate and seek common ground. The nonprofit could contact the light show’s organizer on your behalf. Call client services at 521-6767, or see www.mediatehawaii.org, to pursue this option.

Mahalo

Mahalo to OC16 for making such a wide variety of high school sports available on television. As a parent of four athletes, I find it immensely entertaining to watch even kids I don’t know competing in different sports. These students represent their families, schools and communities well. Kudos to OC16 and their crew for their hard work in bringing all that competition to our living rooms! — Happy viewer

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