KALIHI, Hawaii (KHON2) — Illegal game rooms continue to be a serious issue on Oahu, and city councilmembers say a recent shooting outside of an illicit establishment in Kalihi serves as a wake-up call as they push for action to dismantle the illegal gaming industry.
They could be tucked away in industrial buildings or right in your own residential neighborhood, but police have found that illegal game rooms are magnets for violence and drugs.
“These games aren’t just some aunties playing mahjong. They’re not a bunch of uncles playing poker. This is a whole industry. And along with it comes the guns and drugs, just like we saw in the Kalihi bust and in the Halawa bust. These are really huge problems for our communities,” said Honolulu City Councilmember Tyler Dos Santos-Tam.
Shots rang out outside of an illegal game room in Kalihi on April 17 and prompted an attempted murder investigation. Another gambling investigation in Halawa this week ended with confiscated cash, drug paraphernalia and gambling machines.
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“It’s a plague. It needs to be addressed quicker and further. But again, I do give a lot of credit to the Department of Law Enforcement and HPD for all their hard work and dedication because they are working very hard to get ahead of it,” said Kalihi-Palama Neighborhood Board Chair Amanda Ybanez.
City lawmakers said current tools are not enough, despite hard law enforcement work.
“So there’s three different bills, one of which codifies the cooperation between HPD and other agencies. Another would actually give landlords a little bit more tools by allowing them to use HPD to evict a game room tenant that’s been there,” Dos Santos-Tam said.
The last bill would help police immediately seize illegal gambling machines, but community leaders said there is a bigger issue at play since Las Vegas is considered the 9th Island.
“People in Hawaii gamble. Do we need to have safe parameters? You betcha. But our people are doing it already? Yes, they are,” Ybanez said. “People that actually go to these game rooms have that addiction problem. That’s why there’s a market for it. So we need to also support mental health therapy and addiction therapy for those that are suffering from it.”
Lawmakers are weighing two proposals that would change the game by bringing legal gambling to the New Aloha Stadium District and another that would allow online sports betting.