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ASD Staff

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

 everyone is living with it. But hey, it's only 30 years of your life!

Honolulu neighborhoods from downtown 031025

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: OMG the cost of housing!</title>

In today's social media find, local comedian Tumua jokes about the joys of trying to buy a completely ordinary home at $1.1 million.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: OMG the cost of housing!

We&#039;ve reported on it, everyone is living with it. But hey, it&#039;s only 30 years of your life! 

De Soto 2025

DeSoto Brown

Hawai‘i History

Columnists

As Aloha Tower moved into the middle years of the 20th century, tourism was increasing, and it was recognized that future infrastructure improvements were going to be necessary. Although travelers arriving in Hawai‘i by ship were gradually diminishing while those arriving by air were increasing, discussions in 1958 determined that Honolulu's main docks needed major reconstruction. Piers 8 through 11, at the base of Aloha Tower, should have facilities for passengers moved to a second level while cargo handling should be confined to the ground floors of the wharves. 

Unfortunately, this assessment did not take into account two trends that were already identified at the time — jet planes would be starting service to Hawai‘i within a year or two, and ocean cargoes would soon be shifting exclusively to standardized shipping containers, which Matson had begun using this same year. The latter would eventually require all of Honolulu's cargo movements to be relocated to Sand Island.

So even as visitors were moving away from ship travel in favor of faster and cheaper jet airplanes, in June 1963 a bid of over $5 million was accepted for the revamp of the pier complex. On July 11, 1963 the work started, and in June 1964 a controversial elevated traffic ramp's construction began. This structure was to allow access by vehicles to and from the second-story passenger area that filled in the former open space between Piers 8, 9 and 10. The ramp was criticized for how it would block the view of the harbor when looking down Bishop Street, since to keep the degree of its rise gradual, it would have to extend from a base some distance away at Pier 6.

Even worse, to many people, was how the base of Aloha Tower was completely obscured by the new addition, which also left the ground level here perpetually in shadow. Regardless of complaints, the finished project was dedicated on March 29, 1965.

The anticipated need for accommodating increased ocean travelers at Aloha Tower turned out to be incorrect. Their numbers consistently decreased, and in 1970 Matson ended its once-famous passenger service completely, to focus exclusively on cargo transport from then on. The enlarged dock facilities were unused most of the time.

By 1981 came the start of Aloha Tower's next transformation, which truthfully is still going on today. But this process has been so complex and troubled that it's impossible to even attempt to recount it in any detail here. We'll just focus on what happened starting with the closure of the Tower and its docks on November 1, 1993 in preparation for demolition and then new construction. The overall plan for the area was a massive, multi-stage development, which would start with a "festival marketplace" of the type that had already been successful in other US cities like the first one at Fanueil Hall in Boston from 1976, or Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Planned to follow this at Honolulu Harbor would be an office building, a 350 unit condominium, a maritime-specific office structure, a 350 room hotel, a "historic park" and an elevated bridge over Nimitz Highway to Fort Street. Needless to say, none of the latter ever came into existence.

Starting off the redevelopment process was the tearing-down of everything that had been constructed in the 1960s, along with the pier structures at Docks 8 and 9. On July 14, 1994, Aloha Tower stood entirely by itself for the first time ever, with the two-story concrete & steel wharf buildings at its base entirely removed. This was seen as a very positive step in the anticipated creation of what was to become Aloha Tower Marketplace. Intense work was necessary to meet the opening date of November 19, 1994, when about 50,000 people came to see the new $100 million shopping center. Consisting of a very attractive group of two story buildings with open walkways between them, the mix of tenants included retail stores, bars, restaurants and an open area dedicated to kiosks and pushcarts, with total tenants planned to number 200. The unique, scenic setting and the substantial number of Honolulu residents and visitors as potential customers seemed to indicate a bright future.

Except...the bright future never happened. The immediate problem was parking, which was limited and expensive. The rejection of having to pay to leave your car someplace, when lots of other places fairly nearby were free, pretty much doomed the Aloha Tower Marketplace. Within a few weeks came the first worried complaints from tenants, particularly from the pushcart owners. By May 1995 the developer, Aloha Tower Associates, was in arrears to various unpaid vendors as well as to the State of Hawaii, its landlord.

For years afterwards, the marketplace limped along through bankruptcies, lawsuits, failed proposals for parking improvements, different owners and managers, and dwindling tenants. A few of the latter did well, but many failed.

Finally in 2011, Hawai‘i Pacific University — which occupied numerous rented spaces in multiple downtown buildings, mostly along Fort Street — purchased the lease to Aloha Tower Marketplace along with a commercial investor. The following year the complex was 70% vacant, and by 2013 HPU had bought out its partner and had full control. Thereafter the center was redeveloped into student housing and various other school uses.

A handful of commercial tenants are present today, but in February 2020 the last of the original businesses from the 1994 opening finally closed, which was the controversial Hooters bar and restaurant.

And so we conclude in 2026, Aloha Tower's 100th birthday, anticipating that discussions for the future of the tower and its surroundings will be ongoing indefinitely (perhaps), with probably few actual changes to take place. We can say with certainty that someday the Skyline elevated train will be traveling along nearby Nimitz Highway with a station at Bishop Street, but its effects cannot be anticipated, and if anything can be learned from history, it would be unwise to try to guess them in advance.

(For Part 1 of Aloha Tower at 100 Years, click 

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1 Aloha Tower 60s 16x9

<title>Aloha Tower at 100 years old, Part 2: It seemed like a good idea at the time ...</title>

In the early 1960s, the State of Hawai‘i invested millions in harbor upgrades that included modernizing Aloha Tower as a terminal for passenger liners. But jet planes soon replaced passengers liners, rendering the terminal obsolete. In the 1990s, those structure were torn down to create Aloha Marketplace, a shopping and dining destination that would never draw the anticipated crowds. ASD history writer DeSoto Brown brings us to the present day as Aloha Tower celebrates its centennial.

Aloha Tower at 100 years old, Part 2: It seemed like a good idea at the time ...

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

A Hawai‘i senator has introduced a federal bill that would require AI-generated content to be clearly labeled as such.

Sen. Brian Schatz co-introduced last week the 

 as an effort to improve transparency as AI-generated content becomes more and more common in everyday life.

The measure that requires any AI-generated digital content — whether an image, video, audio or chatbot — include clear disclosures embedded within the content itself identifying it as AI-generated.

Those disclosures must also include a machine-readable disclosure, an invisible “stamp” embedded within the file’s metadata, that also describes the system that generated the content, and when it was generated.

All providers of generative AI systems would be required to ensure that their outputs’ disclosures are detectable by widely available AI-detection tools. Social media platforms would also be required to ensure that the disclosures are still visible when AI-generated content is viewed on their sites, and would be prohibited from obscuring or removing them.

The measure also includes a host of prohibitions against distributing AI content that doesn’t include the disclosures, or against adding disclosures to non-AI-generated content. People or entities who violate those prohibitions could be sued for up to $2,500 per violation.

“People deserve to know whether or not the videos, photos, and content they see and read online is real or original,” 

said Senator Schatz in a statement Tuesday.

 “Our bill is simple – if any digital content is made by artificial intelligence, it should be labeled so that people are aware and aren’t fooled or scammed.”

When introducing the bill, Schatz’ office specifically referenced a 2023 AI-generated photo of an explosion near the Pentagon, which triggered a dip in the stock market.

This wasn’t the only AI bill introduced last week. The 

 would require AI developers to report to the Secretary of Commerce any potentially harmful action autonomously taken by an AI model.

For instance, the bill requires that developers notify authorities if there is any sign that an AI model “is attempting to evade human oversight, deceive evaluators or operators … resist shutdown or modification … enable or accelerate the development, acquisition, or use of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive weapons,” or other behaviors.

Neither bill has been voted on in Congress so far.

Meanwhile, the House voted last week to pass the 

Small Business Administration Artificial Intelligence Utilization Act

, a measure requiring the SBA to publish regular reports about how it uses AI. No representative voted against the measure’s passage.

Other bills the House passed last week include:

Native American Entrepreneurial Opportunity Act

, which establishes within the SBA an Office of Native American Affairs that would work to promote SBA programs with Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. The bill passed the House with no objections.

, which requires the SBA to report to Congress about the number of COVID loan fraud cases that have been reported and resolved. The bill passed the House with no objections.

Emergency Conservation Program Improvement Act

 would allow agricultural producers to receive reimbursements for up to 75% of the cost of replacing farm or conservation structures following a natural disaster through the Emergency Conservation Program and Emergency Forest Restoration Program. The bill passed 368-19, with Hawai‘i Reps. Jill Tokuda and Ed Case in support. The bill has been enrolled to President Donald Trump’s desk.

Brian Schatz official portrait 113th Congress 2 16x9

<title>CONGRESS WATCH: Schatz introduces bill requiring labels on AI content</title>

U.S. Congress considered AI measures and other legislation last week.

CONGRESS WATCH: Schatz introduces bill requiring labels on AI content

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

Baking was always a shared hobby for business owners Joshua and Skye Nakamura, but they only did a “deep dive” into it this year.

“Skye always enjoyed baking cookies and cakes for her friends, while I grew up eating amazing bread baked by my mom,” Joshua Nakamura says. “My mom taught me how to make her very popular shokupan — Japanese milk bread — a few years ago, and I supplied that bread to a local katsu restaurant.

“After I started baking for our friends and family, that very quickly snowballed into (creating) Naks Pan,” he adds.

 business started around March. The mascots on the logo features the “bread-ified” versions of their dogs, Hana and Libby, according to Nakamura, who says they took the required Department of Health food safety course, per home food standards.

“A lot of my friends refer to me as Josh Naks, and ‘pan’ is the Japanese borrowed word for bread,” he says. “Put those together and you get Naks Pan.”

The business offers shio pan, or salt bread, and cream pan. The breads are known for soft, pillowy texture, according to Nakamura.

“Salt bread is the viral, originally Japanese, bread roll that’s taking over Korea,” he says. “It combines the best contrasts of both texture and flavor — it’s sweet and salty, while also being pillowy soft and super crunchy all at the same time.

“There’s a little piece of butter in the middle (for the shio pan),” he adds. “If you watch any social media videos on shio pan, it’s a roll with a little piece of butter, and then as it bakes, the butter melts out. It keeps the inside (of the roll) nice and moist.”

The shio pan comes in flavors like the OG ($4), ube cheezu ($6), pan au chocolat ($5), garlic cheezu ($5), and its newest flavor, ham and chib, or ham and cheese ($6).

“I would say our most popular flavor would be the ube shio pan, which has the same dough with ube flavoring and is also stuffed with our homemade ube halaya,” Nakamura says. “The ham and chib has a piece of a ham (inside) and little 

“The OG shio pan has a little piece of butter in the middle,” he adds. “The shio pan au chocolat is like a play on words, like pain au chocolat, the chocolate croissant; I just added the word ‘shio’ in front. It has a piece of chocolate in the middle and chocolate shavings on top.”

The business’s cream pan is Japanese-style bun stuffed with custard. The dessert is light and delicate without being overly sweet.

“Our version comes with three distinct homemade custard flavors,” Nakamura says. “I developed the recipes so that it fits as much custard as possible. Our cream pan flight ($12) comes with one of each flavor — vanilla, matcha and ube. Some of our most loyal cream pan customers really love the ube cream pan, so we offer a mix-and-match option to fulfill their ube cravings.”

Naks Pan currently does pastry drops on Saturdays. Customers can see the menu and order via 

“We try to have a drop every Saturday; we may also do Sunday drops if there’s a special occasion, or if there’s enough interest for it,” Nakamura says.

The business will be popping up at the Taste of Aloha at Waterfront Plaza on Saturday, July 11. Since that market will have a matcha theme, the biz will be featuring a new matcha shio pan with azuki inside.

[{"type":"text","text":"Naks Pan is looking to pop up at more markets, according to Nakamura."}]

“We appreciate the opportunity we’ve been given to feed our community,” he says. “The best part of our days is hearing and seeing how happy people are, after they consume our bread.

“Naks Pan is a home bakery that’s only run by Skye and I,” he adds. “I’m typically baking along on Saturday, and if things go wrong, I tend to scramble to correct them. We hold ourselves to a very high standard so our customers get the very best bite of bread that we can provide.”

Naks Pan owner 063026

<title>Naks Pan is a new salt bread business on Oʻahu</title>

The home bakery specializes in shio pan, or salt bread, and cream pan. The Japanese bread rolls are available in a variety of flavors, while the cream pan buns are filled with custard. The biz will be popping up at the Taste of Aloha market on July 11.

Naks Pan is a new salt bread business on Oʻahu

Crime & Courts

A man’s blurted apology to a police officer arresting him has overturned his conviction for assaulting that officer, the Hawai‘i Supreme Court decided.

Henry Tolentino told a Honolulu Police officer “I’m sorry, I was just trying to get a Zip Pac” one night in September 2019.

The officer had pulled Tolentino over for speeding, but after Tolentino left his vehicle, the traffic stop escalated into a brief pursuit: Tolentino fled, the officer followed, and Tolentino reportedly kicked and punched the officer in the struggle. In turn, the officer reportedly punched Tolentino in the face repeatedly to subdue him until a second officer reached the pair and ended the scuffle.

As the officers handcuffed Tolentino, he reflexively said his apology. But, as a prosecutor later told a jury, “[he] knew he did something wrong by saying ‘I’m sorry.’”

Tolentino’s “unsolicited excited utterance” was used to suggest admission of guilt and contributed to him being found guilty of second-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, a misdemeanor offense for which he was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $155.

Tolentino appealed the ruling, arguing that a reflexively spoken phrase is not admissible in court without proper hearings on whether it was voluntarily made, hearings that did not happen in Tolentino’s case.

The state, meanwhile, argued that “excited utterances” may be involuntary, but not compulsory. That is, because Tolentino was not forced to say “I’m sorry,” it was still admissible, even if he didn’t mean to say it.

Tolentino also protested that prosecutors had stated during his trial that he was drunk during the 2019 incident, using only circumstantial evidence like the smell of alcohol and the redness of his eyes.

But it was the question of the reflexively spoken phrase that reached the Supreme Court. And on Tuesday, the court 

 that the guilty verdict against Tolentino was reached in error.

Writing for the opinion of the court, Associate Justice Todd Eddins concluded that, because there was no evidentiary hearing to determine whether Tolentino’s apology was voluntarily made, his conviction must be vacated and the case remanded for a retrial.

“An inculpatory statement must flow from the defendant’s free and voluntary choice,” Eddins wrote. “Custody or no custody. Interrogation or no interrogation.”

Associate Justice Lisa Ginoza wrote her own opinion partially dissenting with Eddins’ majority opinion. While Ginoza agreed that the lower courts had erred in allowing Tolentino’s apology to be admissible as evidence without an evidentiary hearing, that does not mean the case should be retried right away, she argued.

Only after a voluntariness hearing is conducted that determines Tolentino’s apology was involuntary should the case be retried, which Ginoza said is the constitutionally recognized procedure.

Ginoza added that the majority ruling now requires trial courts to hold voluntariness hearings for any known statement by a defendant that might admit guilt, which she wrote will be “a tremendous burden on our already overburdened trial courts.”

Nonetheless, with the Supreme Court verdict, Tolentino will get a new trial, although a court date has not yet been scheduled.

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: OMG the cost of housing!

Authors

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Reporter

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