Council legislation to crack down on illegal game rooms

On any given day, Honolulu Police say there are at least 100 illegal game rooms operating somewhere on the island.

Inside those establishments, they add, operators, using electronic gambling devices to play the “fish game,” are garnering hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars in gambling profits daily.

To permanently shut down these unlawful yet lucrative ventures has proven difficult for HPD, as illicit gambling parlors that are discovered, investigated and, via search warrants and police raids, ultimately closed down, tend to quickly reopen, sometimes in the same spot and often under new operators.

In a year’s time, police say, on average only about 20 such operations are closed on Oahu.

During a news conference in Kalihi Valley on Wednesday, Hono­lulu City Council members Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and Andria Tupola announced they’ve introduced a legislative package of two bills and one resolution aiming to curtail illegal game rooms — and the accompanying crimes gambling parlors tend to draw including drug sales, weapons, robberies, and gun violence — by coordinating the efforts of HPD with city agencies such as the Department of Planning and Permitting and Corporation Counsel to target landlords of properties used to house game rooms.

To illustrate the intent of their effort, the Council members chose a spot across the street from a two-story building — at 2406 Kalihi St. — that police raided on July 27, claiming the second floor of that mixed-use building, which includes a liquor store and a poke bowl eatery on its ground floor, was also being used as an illegal gaming establishment.

And in the same raid, the basement of a green-colored home directly behind that two-story building — owned by the same property owner — was also being used to house another game room, police say.

“This second floor did not exist a few years ago,” Dos Santos-Tam said of the building in question, from the small parking lot of Kalihi Uka Elementary School across the street. “If you go on Google Street View, in 2019 it is not there. And so this (second floor) popped up seemingly overnight, with no building permits.”

Under their legislative package, Tupola and Dos Santos-Tam introduced Bill 57, Bill 58 and Resolution 228.

Notably, Bill 57 would give DPP and the Corporation Counsel greater ability to go after landlords of buildings used for illegal game rooms. That bill, if adopted, allows DPP to impose $1,000 in fines per day, and up to $150,000 in total on landlords. It also allows the Corporation Counsel to take legal action on any landlord allowing game rooms on their property.

Likewise, if adopted, Bill 58 would allow HPD officers, if designated by DPP, to impose penalties for building code, fire code, and land use ordinance violations.

Resolution 228 calls for HPD and DPP to work collaboratively — namely, to share evidence in enforcing the law.

Just as in Kalihi, the issues with unlawful game rooms are islandwide, as they’ve also cropped in places like the Leeward Coast.

Tupola said while serving in District 1, which stretches from portions of Ewa Beach to Makaha, she’s held three town hall meetings in three years over the game room issue alone. She added the problem persists in places like Waianae, where operations are often hidden from public view inside single-family homes, concealed in residential neighborhoods.

“And they have been going on and on despite hours and hours of what I would say are wasted city resources,” Tupola said, adding police can only do so much “as they make arrests, just to see the (game rooms) go up again.”

In District 1, Tupola said the problem is made worse as shootings tied to these gambling parlors have occurred with frequency in recent times. “Because of the large amounts of cash from these illegal operations as well as confrontations that have led to violence,” she added.

Police say this newly introduced legislation — modeled after similar efforts in Portland, Ore. — is worth a try.

Police Maj. Roland Turner, who commands Patrol District 5, which includes greater Kalihi, added the point “is to codify a plan … which was to find a better way to do this.”

“Because we might hit this game room 10 times, shut it down completely, take the machines, make arrests, but then it starts up again, and the community rightfully says, ‘What’s going on?’” Turner explained. “But the problem is because it’s not necessarily the same people operating it.”

He added because it’s a “lucrative operation, they’ll just find other people to manage it.”

Moreover, Turner said in some cases — in places like the Leeward Coast and elsewhere — these game rooms may be run by a few people with connections to organized crime.

“In District 5, we haven’t seen it to be as prevalent as an organized crime issue,” Turner said of the Kalihi area. “Generally, there’ll be ties to crime, but not necessarily organized crime. Here, it’s more lower-level criminals that just understand how this stuff works, and maybe they can source the (gambling) machines and so forth.”

In addition, Cpl. Alika Watson, who works in District 5, said officers, on average, are able to shut down one game room per month in Kalihi. And he noted the two-story building raided over the summer had been raided before.

“The one across the street has been raided many times,” said Watson, from the elementary school’s parking lot. “Traditionally, the game room is located in the basement underneath this liquor store. Then, during COVID, they built the second-story with no permit and the game room was in there. I think there were two raids.”

According to Turner, having HPD work with other city agencies like DPP to go after property owners who facilitate game rooms could be a game-changer.

“The property owner remains the same no matter who is running the illegal establishment,” Turner said, noting that issuing monetary fines and other city sanctions against the landlord will likely create change for the better. “Once you get (the property owner) interested in closing it down, it closes down.”