The Waikiki Neighborhood Board unanimously supports closing a loophole in city law that is allowing Waikiki businesses to use wheeled kiosks to promote their merchandise and services rent-free on public sidewalks where traditional retailers pay premium rents.

Ten board members voted Tuesday to support Bill 6, which will be heard at 2:30 p.m. Thursday by the Honolulu City Council’s Committee on Public Health, Safety and Economic Development. The bill, which passed first reading Jan. 31, seeks to regulate public nuisances on sidewalks.

The Waikiki Improvement Association worked with Councilman Trevor Ozawa to introduce the bill, which essentially would prohibit rolling kiosks on the district’s sidewalks by removing the exceptions in public nuisance law 29-16.6 for Waikiki.

Proponents of mobile kiosks have long argued that Waikiki’s high rents and onerous advertising restrictions have made them necessary. While the practice was once tolerated, more recently the increase in complaints, economic-based and otherwise, has kept pace with the increase in wheeled kiosks.

Jim Fulton, who represents the Waikiki Improvement Association, estimates that on any given day 12 to 15 mobile kiosks can be found on the district’s sidewalks. He said the idea behind the bill is to “promote transportation and pedestrian safety and eliminate visual blight on sidewalks.”

Jack Gottlieb, owner of Tours for Less —Discount Tours &Activities LLC, said there’s also an economic reason to support the bill since “rent- free kiosks are distracting from stores that are paying tens of thousands of dollars.”

Waikiki resident Dave Moskowitz said the measure is necessary to improve the “visual beauty of Waikiki.”

“It just looks bad when hustlers are using the sidewalks for their own business purposes. There should be no place for these structures on Waikiki sidewalks,” Moskowitz said.

Mobile kiosks aren’t illegal under current law unless they are being used to peddle products.

Department of Planning and Permitting spokesman Curtis Lum said the department can proceed with enforcement now only if a kiosk does not have wheels and isn’t mobile.

Regardless of whether the kiosks have wheels, they are subject to peddling laws, said Michelle Yu, a spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department, which is the city’s other kiosk enforcement arm. In February, HPD issued four citations for hand-bill activities and one citation for peddling, Yu said.

Fulton said HPD supports the measure “100 percent” because it clarifies enforcement.