City locking 25 parks at night to deter vandalism

A simpler time when people respected city parks is over, Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Thursday, and since April 1 a private security company has been locking bathrooms and gates at 25 city parks at night to deter vandalism.

Speaking at Kapaolono Community Park on 11th Avenue, which has a bathroom gate that is now being locked at night, Caldwell said he’s taking the step after more than 600 acts of vandalism to city parks in three years.

“In the good old days, when I was a kid, we left them open all the time, and nobody went in and hurt anything,” Caldwell said. “We had a greater respect for private property and public property than we do today. But, unfortunately, that culture has changed, and so we’re going to be securing these restrooms to see if it makes a difference. If it makes a difference, and I believe it will, then we’ll try to roll it out islandwide.”

Since April 1 the city has hired a private security company, American Guard Services Inc., for $25,916 to lock gates and bathrooms at 25 city parks at night when the parks are officially closed. The pilot program is scheduled to run through the end of June.

Park employees then unlock the gates and bathrooms each morning. Most parks close at 10 p.m. and open at 5 a.m.

The pilot program follows the installation of security cameras at Sandy Beach, Ala Moana Beach Park and Kaiaka Bay Beach Park on the North Shore that Caldwell said have proved successful in deterring vandalism.

In the first two weeks of the pilot program, there have been no acts of vandalism at night when the 25 parks are closed, said Angela Watson, American Guard’s Hawaii branch manager.

The only incident, graffiti at a Sandy Beach bathroom, occurred during the day over Easter weekend, Watson said.

The 25 parks — from Sandy Beach to Aiea — were selected because of their proximity to each other and the ability of two American Guard patrol employees to separately drive to each park and secure them.

They won’t patrol the parks, but neighbors will see black American Guard patrol cars with gold lettering every night, Caldwell said.

Watson said American Guard field supervisors or patrol officers will photograph any vandalism and report any incidents to Honolulu police.

But she said their nightly appearance in 25 parks “does go a long way” in deterring vandalism.

Overall, Caldwell promised more attention to preventing park vandalism.

“We’re going to put more cameras,” he said. “We’re going to lock more restrooms, and we’re going to do a better job to fit within the changed culture that we face today.”

He took responsibility for the state of some city parks and said, “We need to show we care, too. If we don’t care, why should others care, too?”

But Caldwell also asked neighbors to act as the eyes and ears for Honolulu police.

“If we see vandalism, please call 911 just like you would step up if it was your property,” Caldwell said. “This is really the community’s property. It is your property. It’s your tax dollars that go to maintain it.”

Being able to secure all of the city’s 298 parks will be difficult. Not all of them have gates, and 213 have bathroom facilities — but there’s little uniformity between bathroom door sizes in order to lock all of them.

“Unfortunately, every restroom is a different size,” Caldwell said. “They’re not one size fits all. … So we have to modify park by park. … There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to retrofit these restrooms.”

But Caldwell seemed optimistic that the three-month experiment will be expanded islandwide — perhaps by the end of the year.

If so, it might involve changing employees’ hours so they can lock gates and bathrooms at night and unlock them in the morning.