I hope the University of Hawaii Board of Regents nullifies the decision to sell the naming rights to our UH volleyball court to the California Hotel, a gambling enterprise that by its nature must be on many lists of socially irresponsible entities (“California Hotel gets naming rights for UH volleyball court,” Star-Advertiser, July 25).

UH needs to make a “make up” call after our UH baseball stadium was named Les Murakami Stadium. Murakami, worthy as he is, did not win four national championships as did Dave Shoji in women’s volleyball. Our UH volleyball court should be named “Dave Shoji Court.”

Alan Matsuda

Hawaii Kai

—

Bag rules costly for consumers

There is a lot of resentment and misunderstanding about the current shopping bag regulations. It’s a classic case of unintended consequences when government tries to fix something.

First lawmakers caved to the environmental lobby to ban plastic bags — a noble cause, but they did it to gain re-election support. But they created an undue burden on retailers, who generally upgraded their bags to ultimately more damaging heavier plastic bags at great cost. Alternatively they could use paper, which is more expensive and bulky, increasing storage costs too.

Politicians then caved to the retail lobby, whom I sympathize with, to help offset these high costs. Now retailers face a bigger dilemma with irate customers and shoplifters who BYOB. This will ultimately raise prices for consumers, who in the end always pick up the tab for government intervention.

Gary McCarty

Makiki

—

Trash dumping on freeway

There is a serious problem going on over the past year in the Wahiawa-Waipio area, on the freeway between the Wahiawa on-ramp all the way to the H-1/H-2 merge.

Some person or persons are continuously dumping large amounts of trash on both sides of the freeway. I’ve noticed that every Sunday as I head toward Kaneohe from Wahiawa, there is exceptionally heavy dumping of trash and household items.

It is like they have marked the area with their own belongings much like an animal marks its territory. They now seem to feel entitled to pseudo- ownership rights.

It must cost the state hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars to clean up this mess. Perhaps an unmarked police car could be placed somewhere along the route sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning to witness this act and apprehend this perpetrator.

Clifford Honjiyo

Wahiawa