New rules for North Shore surf permits panned

Some North Shore surf meet organizers and supporters are unhappy with new rules that went into effect Monday for the granting of permits for North Shore events.

Key to the new rules is a revamped North Shore surf calendar that now runs on a three-year cycle rather than the old one-year cycle. The current calendar schedule has been slotted through Aug. 31, 2019, and those who want to hold surf meets between Sept. 1, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2021, will need to submit applications by Sept. 28 this year.

Another major change is that applicants for permits will no longer have an appeal process.

Mahina Chillingworth, who organizes Da Hui Backdoor Shootout for Hui o He‘e Nalu, said both the new three-year cycle and elimination of an appeal process aren’t good for her event or others in the community.

“It doesn’t give an applicant who was denied a permit due process to question and go through an appeal process to fight for their permit and to prove the city wrong,” Chillingworth said. Under the new process, “if the city doesn’t award you the permit for three years, it’s done. You will eat it for three years, and you won’t be able to have your event for three years.”

Hui o He‘e Nalu is appealing a city decision under the old rules, something it couldn’t do under the new rules, Chillingworth said. Da Hui eventually was awarded the event dates when the original awardee backed out, but the group felt it important to go through the appeal process to expose the faults with the system, she said.

A majority of the people who testified on the draft opposed it, but the city implemented it anyway. “They were just going through the motions and wasting a lot of people’s time,” she said.

Alan Lennard, who runs a bodysurfing meet on the North Shore, said the city should also have held a presentation on the rules before the North Shore Neighborhood Board, the Sunset Beach Community Association or another community forum. After draft rules were made public, the city held a public hearing July 3 at the Honolulu Hale Mission Memorial Hall.

Lennard said the new rules favor the World Surfing League, the powerful group that runs most of surfing’s major meets, which had clashed with Mayor Kirk Caldwell and other city officials earlier this year over surf meet permit rules.

WSL officials announced in February that they were either canceling or moving the 2020 Billabong Pipe Masters out of Oahu after the city denied its request to hold the 2019 contest in January rather than December as it has. The December 2018 event has long been scheduled, so the league would’ve held two Billabongs in consecutive months.

That prompted Caldwell, in March, to call for an overhaul of the surf meet rules with the help of an advisory committee.

WSL officials were mum Monday about whether they will reconsider their decision about a December 2019 Billabong meet or will be applying for it to be held in January 2020.

“The deadline for event applications for October 2019 and beyond is still two months away, so we have not yet submitted any applications beyond this coming winter,” said Jodi Wilmott, WSL vice president of events for Asia-Pacific, in an email. “Our desire is to continue to offer world class professional surfing events to Hawaii’s athletes; world class entertainment to our valued fans; and sustainable opportunities to our local community.”

Wilmott added, “We will continue to abide by City and County rules and the application process in our efforts to maintain these events and opportunities.”