The Paradise Panhandlers

If Mark Twain were alive today and visited Waikiki he would write a scathing review of the panhandlers in Waikiki.

Hawaii is an expensive place to live for those of us with jobs. For those without jobs, newly arrived from the mainland, newly devoid of sanity and financial resources, Waikiki is a Mecca, a place where panhandling is tolerated and lucrative.

Granted, living on the streets cannot be an easy life, even in paradise, and Hawaii’s swelling homeless ranks are a blight on a society that claims to care about the disadvantaged.

There’s a difference between being homeless, foraging for food, and wandering the streets in a daze, vs. a calculated method of begging for lucrative monetary handouts from locals and visitors near automatic teller machines.

What’s needed? Laws and enforcement, say our city lawmakers. Bill 81 will make aggressive panhandling illegal within 10 feet of an automatic teller machine (ATM) or a business that cashes checks. Great. Something is being done.

What? Only 10 feet? We can still see the whites of their beady little panhandler eyes at 10 feet. What’s wrong with 30 yards? Nothing, unless the panhandlers need to use the ATM themselves to check their account balance.

10 feet does not intimidating panhandling stop.