Several hula halau are scrambling to find alternate accommodations for Hilo’s Merrie Monarch Festival, now that Hawaii County has ruled out overnight stays in county-owned gyms, citing fire code violations. The decision turns a practice common for decades on its heels.

Hawaii island Mayor Harry Kim told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the decision was prompted by notification from the Hawaii County Fire Department but wasn’t done suddenly.

“When I first came on board, the Fire Department did notify me that these gyms did not pass the fire code as far as overnight stays,” said Kim. “This was a couple of months before the last festival.”

In an Aug. 9 letter sent to Merrie Monarch Festival President Luana Kawelu, he cited four specific gyms where overnight stays will be prohibited: Kawananakoa Gym, Papaikou Gym, Waiakea Recreation Center and Waiakea Uka Gym.

More than 130 people stayed in the four gyms for one to nine nights during the festival in late April. Kim said to comply with fire code rules, he allowed halau to hold 24-hour fire watches, but won’t do that next year.

While he said he supports the festival and all that it represents, he needs to follow the Fire Department’s recommendation.

“I consider this a very wise move,” he said. “This is strictly for the safety of the participants.”

Overnight stays in gyms have been common practice to accommodate large numbers of dancers for the hula competition in Hilo in past decades. The groups paid the county a small fee: $10 a night for adults, $5 a night for each person 17 and under, and a $35 custodial fee.

The news came as a surprise to Kawelu, but she says as host, Hilo will come through and the festival will continue.

“It was (a surprise) but, you know, that’s OK,” she said. “We’re going to find a way to take care of them (the halau), and it’ll all be OK. We’re working on it.”

Festival organizers are helping up to four hula halau find alternative accommodations before next year’s competition April 5-8. The festival, which turns 55 next year, typically features hundreds of dancers representing more than 20 halau from throughout the isles.

Halau Hi‘iakainamakalehua of Honolulu, under the direction of kumu Robert Ke‘ano Ka‘upu IV and Lono Padilla, is among the groups looking for new accommodations.

The halau stayed at Kawananakoa Gym in Keaukaha the past three years, according to Ka‘upu. Dancers slept on air mattresses arranged in neat rows, kept their belongings organized and were respectful, he said.

Two weeks before the 2017 festival, Ka‘upu said, the halau was told it needed to set up a night fire watch and could not afford to hire security, so family members of the halau volunteered while dancers slept.

“We tried to follow the rules, at least the ones we knew of, especially since Kawananakoa is in the community I grew up in,” he said. “So that was my hometown gym. So we tried to make sure we did everything that was required.”

The cost of bringing a halau with 25 dancers to the festival, including airfare, food, costumes and lei, amounts to an average of $50,000, according to Ka‘upu.

Not all halau can afford to shell out the hundreds of dollars per person to stay at Hilo hotels. Often, reservations are booked a year in advance. Greater accommodation costs would push that amount even higher, beyond the budgets of some halau.

This year 25 people with the halau stayed at the gym, including its solo competitor, Kelina Eldredge, who won the Miss Aloha Hula title. Next year the halau plans to bring a men’s group, so it will have double the amount of dancers, plus helpers, bringing the number of people up to 55.

With the help of Merrie Monarch organizers, Ka‘upu is hoping the halau can stay at a home down the street from the gym, but details are still being worked out. The halau will not give up on going, he said, calling this a “bump in the road.”

In his letter, Kim stated that Kawananakoa gym was also subject to Department of Hawaiian Home Lands lease terms, which prohibit food, drink or overnight stays.

Kim told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that spending the money to retrofit the gyms with sprinklers and alarms would be costly and impractical.

“These are all old gyms made during the plantation era, not suitable for what people have been using them for,” Kim said.

The community of Hilo was dismayed by the mayor’s decision, according to Hawaii County Councilwoman Sue L.K. Lee Loy, who called it a “huge departure” and fielded numerous phone calls. However, she said, she too is focused on solutions.

Lee Loy and fellow Councilman Aaron Chung are looking at whether other county facilities are permitted for use by the halau. “Everybody has recognized it is what it is at this point,” she said, “and what do we do from this point forward.”