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Kady Pascual

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

Still an impressive catch — flex on 'em!

RobDemello Best Time

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Maybe not the best time for holoholo</title>

Today’s social media find comes from @RobDemello, showing prime 808 during Tuesday's tsunami warning.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Maybe not the best time for holoholo

Still an impressive catch — flex on &#039;em!  Make sure you follow @RobDemello on Instagram!

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

, known for its affordable bentos, just opened its third location on Young Street. This store is in the former space of J-Shop.

U-Kitchen offers a variety of musubi, bentos, bowls and curry. The menu is the same here as its downtown Honolulu store, according to business owner Yudai Fukuda.

Popular bentos include butterfish ($13.99), mochiko chicken ($10.99) and chicken katsu ($10.99). The musubi selection ranges from salmon ($2.99) and spicy tuna ($3.19) to unagi ($4.79) and mentai mayo ($3.29).

U-Kitchen’s original location is in Kalihi; its downtown Honolulu store, which is in Topa Financial Center, is currently closed due a power outage in the building, according to Fukuda. He says the downtown Honolulu store — 

“Our peak time (at that location) was from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.,” he says, nothing the shop’s popularity with the downtown Honolulu lunch crowd.

He says that Topa Financial Center was supposed to reopen on Aug. 24, but says the re-opening was delayed further after Hurricane Lala.

U-Kitchen’s Young Street store is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays. Customer parking is available in the shop's lot.  

Open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays, closed Sundays

U Kitchen Young Street worker 081826

<title>U-Kitchen opens a new bento and musubi cafe</title>

The business, whose original location is in Kalihi, just opened a third location on Young Street in the former J-Shop space. The business’s Downtown Honolulu store has been temporarily closed since July 23, according to U-Kitchen owner Yudai Fukuda.

U-Kitchen opens a new bento and musubi cafe

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Michael Brestovansky

WEB square crop Hayley Lehman Headshot RGZ1636

Haley Lehman

Government & Politics

Aloha Spirit

State government offices and public schools with reopen in the City and County of Honolulu, Kauaʻi County and Maui County on Tuesday. Government offices and schools will remain closed on Tuesday for Hawaiʻi County.

Nāʻalehu Elementary School, Kaʻū High School and Pāhala Elementary will continue to be closed due to flooding.

Gov. Josh Green said at a news conference on Monday in Hilo that it was an emotional day seeing the flood damage in Kaʻū where he first worked as a physician in Hawaiʻi. Residents are still without water and power.

“It’s the flood and the mud and the rock that poured through Nā’ālehu, Pahala, Waiohinu. These communities have a lot of cleanup to do and they’re going to need a lot of support,” Green said. County parks also faced extensive damage.

Green said that he believes the Kaʻū area will be accessible within days, and state roads will see “significant appropriations” in the years to come for infrastructure improvements.

“Itʻs going to start in Kaʻū. This region is going to get our greatest attention right now from the storm because they suffered the most,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"According to Green, a 90-year-old woman died in the flood in Nāʻalehu."}]

Hawaiʻi Fire Department Chief Daniel Volpe said that the woman was identified as a missing person and discovered deceased on Monday afternoon. The Hawaiʻi Fire Department Chief Reed Mahuna said that the department will investigate the cause of death, but “we don’t believe it was anything other than the disaster at this time.”

Maj. Gen. Stephen Logan, adjutant general and commander of the Hawaiʻi National Guard, said 240 national guard soldiers and airmen have been activated, including 60 on Hawaiʻi Island. The National Guardsmen will go door to door in Nāʻalehu and check on residents.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We’re going to be here until it’s over,” Logan said."}]

The City and County of Honolulu will resume normal government operations Tuesday as the city makes progress towards recovery and restoration.

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said in a news release Monday, “Our first responders, emergency personnel, City crews, utility workers and so many others have done an extraordinary job responding to this storm and beginning the recovery. There is still work to be done, particularly in some of our hardest-hit communities, and that work will continue. But we believe we are at a point where we can safely reopen City government and continue serving the public.”

Municipal golf courses, the Honolulu Zoo, Satellite City Halls and Driver Licensing Centers, public transportation and refuse collection will resume normal operations. Some city parks and gardens are still without power and some have sustained damaged, so some park facilities will remain closed.

The Cityʻs informational call center, which can be reached at 808-723-8960, will remain open until 11 p.m. Monday and from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday for non-emergency, storm-related information.

The City closed hurricane refuge shelters on Monday. HONU residents who were displaced ahead of the storm will remain at ʻEwa Mahiko District Park until Wednesday, when they are expected to return to the Kapolei Musubi lot.

According to Hawaiian Electric, 103,980 customers remain without power. Hawaiian Electric has deployed more than 500 employees, contractors and support workers to support damage assessment and power restoration, according to a spokesperson. Hawaiian Electric requested assistance from the Western Regional Mutual Assistance Group and approximately 100 additional utility personnel will arrive from partner utilities starting Tuesday.

“Crews are prioritizing work that will restore the greatest number of customers safely, beginning with damage and repairs to transmission lines. Those lines are the backbone of the grid, connecting generation sources to communities, and must be repaired before neighborhood distribution-system repairs can fully proceed,” the spokesperson stated in an email to ASD. “The major impacts following the storm include widespread power outages, downed trees, damaged poles and lines, road closures, flooding, debris and access challenges in rugged or remote areas.”

 While Hurricane Lala did not make landfall on Hawaiʻi Island, with the eye of the storm veering within 30 miles of the island’s South Point on Saturday, it still brought wind gusts between 60 and 91 miles per hour, downed trees, record rainfall amounts, landslides and flooding to Hawaiʻi Island. All warnings and watches associated with Hurricane Lala have been canceled.

Meteorologist Thomas Vaughn told Aloha State Daily Monday that the storm formed as a combination of the El Niño season, the climate pattern that makes for a move active hurricane season in the Pacific, high pressure systems to the north east, sea surface temperatures and wind sheer.

According to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, a broad area of low pressure to the east south-east of the Hawaiian Islands has a 50% chance of forming into a cyclone.

Vaughn said that while there is uncertainty if the system will form into a cyclone, “it is hurricane season, so you should be creating some sort of plan if and when something were to impact you.”

Hurricane Lala damaged electrical infrastructure on Hawaʻi Island, leaving 41,190 customers without power. Crews repaired three major transmission lines on Saturday. Teams from Oʻahu will arrive on Hawaiʻi Island Monday to help restore power, and three helicopters are inspecting six transmission lines across the island.

As of 11 a.m. Monday, approximately 117,120 Hawaiian Electric customers are without power, including 69,150 customers on Oʻahu and 6,780 customers in Maui County.

Most of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park remains closed without power. Park rangers reopened Crater Rim Drive West from the park entrance to Uēkahuna at the summer of Kīlauea volcano Monday morning. The park has no power, phone service or internet.

Intersections where traffic signals are out should be treated as all-way stops. Waikīkī, ʻEwa Beach and Waiʻanae are seeing heavier congestion and travel times due to non-functioning traffic signals.

Hurricane Lala set record rainfall on Hawaiʻi Island and Maui. Hilo received 6.82 inches of rain, breaking the 1969 record of 5.1 inches, and Kahului received 0.29 inches of rain, breaking the 1993 record of 0.23 inches. The storm also broke a daily precipitation records in Honolulu, Hilo and Kahului.

The Manoa Stream rose to 14.03 feet at 5:20 a.m. Sunday, according to a USGS stream gauge. Eight stream gauges on Hawaiʻi Island malfunctioned on Saturday. The gauge at Paʻauau Gulch in Pahala, Hawaiʻi Island rose from .38 feet to 6.15 feet Saturday night before the gauge malfunctioned.

A brown water advisory remains in place for all Hawaiian Islands. The Department of Health recommends that people stay out of affected waters for 48 to 72 hours after it has stopped raining and beaches have received full sunshine.

High surf warnings were cancelled and the surf is expected decline as the storm moves further from the Hawaiian Islands.

The City and County of Honolulu reported Monday morning it is in “full cleanup and recovery mode” following Hurricane Lala.

The City and County of Honolulu Department of Environmental Services reopened all convenience centers, transfer stations and the Waimānalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill on Monday. Regular curbside refuse collection is continuing as scheduled.

[{"type":"text","text":"All commercial harbors reopened as of 4 p.m. Sunday."}]

Starlink is providing free internet service to impacted Hawaiʻi customers through Sept. 17. No action is required for existing customers.

is collecting donations to fund food, water, tarps and clean up efforts on Hawaiʻi Island and deploying trained chainsaw teams to assist residents blocked in their homes.

Hawaiʻi residents whose food purchased with SNAP benefits was lost due to impacts from Hurricane Lala can apply for replacement benefits through the 

 Government offices and public schools will be closed Monday to support response and recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Lala.

According to a news release issued Sunday evening, “the statewide closure will allow emergency response, recovery and restoration efforts to continue while communities across Hawaiʻi recover from the storm.”

Governor Josh Green stated in a news release, “The safety of our people remains our highest priority as we’re responding to these storm impacts. Our state crews continue to work around the clock to protect life and property, and we encourage our residents and visitors to continue to shelter in place.”

Department of Land and National Resources State Parks on Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaiʻi Island will remain closed until further notice.

As of Sunday evening, all airports are open, but some flights may be delayed or cancelled. Hawaiʻi Island harbors and Kahului Harbor and Kaumalapau Harbor on Lanaʻi are open. Kaunakakai Harbor on Molokai, Nāwiliwili and Port Allen on Lanaʻi and Oʻahu harbors remain closed pending port assessment.

Hawaiʻi State Department of Education public schools and offices will be closed Monday.

UH Mānoa, Windward Community College and Kapiʻolani Community College are currently without power. Updates will be provided late Sunday night regarding campus operations for Monday.

City and County of Honolulu non-essential offices and services will be closed Monday. All public park facilities, the Honolulu Zoo, municipal golf courses, city botanical gardens, satellite city halls and driver licensing centers will be closed Monday.

“While the storm has passed, our work is not finished,” City and County of Honolulu Mayor Blangiardi said. “Our first responders, emergency personnel and City crews have worked tirelessly throughout this storm, and Monday will be an important day for assessing damage, clearing roads and debris, restoring services and helping our communities recover. This coordinated decision by the Governor and county mayors will allow us to keep our resources focused on that work while keeping unnecessary traffic off our roads and giving our communities time to recover.”

 A Tropical Storm Warning remains in effect for Kauaʻi and the Hawaiian Islands are still under a flood watch as Lala continues to produce heavy rainfall and gusty winds. The National Weather Service discontinued the Tropical Storm Warning for Oʻahu at 2 p.m. Sunday.

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, Tropical Storm Lala was approimately 240 miles west of Honolulu and holding steady southwest of Kauaʻi County. Heavy rainfall and the potential for flooding and mudslides will continue through Sunday night or early Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Large waves generated by Lala will continue to impact the Hawaiian Islands and may cause coastal flooding and beach erosion.

Hawaiian Electric restored power to approximately 180,000 customers Sunday after Hurricane Lala and 191,800 customers are without power. Customers on Hawaiʻi Island are asked to prepare for extended outages in the hardest hit rural areas as road closures, flooding, fallen trees and debris and continuing incelement weather slows the restoration process. Approximately 130,100 are without power on Oʻahu, approximatey 15,800 Maui County residents are without power and 45,900 customers are without power on Hawaiʻi Island.

Cell service in parts of Central Oʻahu and the North Shore is intermittent.

City, county and state crews are responding to road and lane closures across the state caused by flooding, fallen trees and debris. Motorists should avoid driving on flooded or debris-covered roads.

Honolulu Fire Department fielded nearly 700 calls over the weekend and responded to calls about 175 downed trees, 79 blown roofs, 39 downed power lines, 16 water evacuations, four building fires, one high angle rescue and one swimmer rescue.

The City and County of Honolulu is transitioning overnight shelter operations to Booth District Park, ʻEwa Mahiko District Park and Kāneʻohe District Park at 6 p.m. Sunday. According to a news release, 247 people sought refuge in the hurricane refuge shelters at the peak of operations and 127 people reamin.

Hawaiʻi is currently under a statewide Brown Water Advisory following Hurricane Lala.

Hawaiʻi Department of Education closed Nāʻālehu Elementary School through Thursday due to storm-related damage to the campus and road closures. Kaʻū High School and Pāhala Elementary School will be closed Monday.

Honolulu Zoo, indoor park facilities, most botanical gardens, transfer stations and the Waimānalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill will reopen Monday. Wahiawā Botanical Garden will remain closed Monday. Outdoor park facilities will be reassessed Monday.

 More than 100 homes on Hawai’i Island have been damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Lala, Gov. Josh Green said Sunday.

Some parts of the Big Island received more than two feet of rain since the storm reached Hawai’i, Green said at a media briefing Sunday morning. Laupāhoehoe in North Hilo received 32 inches of rainfall, and Green said a “river of water” flooded parts of Na’alehu and that several smaller bridges connecting Volcano to Na’alehu were impassable. 

So far, there is only one reported storm-related casualty: Green said a fatal car crash occurred on the Big Island Saturday, although he added that whether that death is found to have been directly caused by the storm is a matter for local law enforcement.

As of 7 a.m., nearly 200,000 people were without power statewide. Hawaiian Electric reported that “all of the east side and south sides” of the Big Island were out of power, along with Waimea and Honoka’a, for a total of about 58,000 customers. 

About 110,700 customers were without power on O’ahu, and about 28,700 were without power in Maui, Lāna’i and Molokai.

Crews are conducting damage assessments as areas become accessible. However, HECO warned that customers, particularly those in the rural areas of Hawai’i Island, “should prepare for extended outages lasting weeks or even months.”

On O’ahu, fallen boulders have closed Pali Highway, although Department of Transportation Services Director Roger Morton said crews expect to reopen the highway later today.

Morton said bus services are gradually resuming route-by-route today as DTS determines which roads are passable. He added that many traffic lights throughout the island are out of power and advised drivers to remain cautious.

O’ahu residents are urged to report any damage to their residents to the City and County of Honolulu at 

 City and County of Honolulu officials urge residents to shelter in place as Hurricane Lala buffets the state.

Mayor Rick Blangiardi said the worst impacts of the storm on O’ahu are expected to begin around 8:30 p.m. tonight, and will last for the next 12-16 hours. On the other hand, he said, within 24 hours, the worst of the storm should have passed. 

In the meantime, residents are urged to stay at home and avoid unnecessary travel. 

Transit Director Jon Nouchi said TheBus will cease new operations beginning 8:30 p.m., as a precaution against unexpected road closures or bus rollovers caused by heavy winds. Buses en route at 8:30 p.m. will complete their routes and allow passengers to reach their destinations, but will not begin subsequent routes.

Nouchi said bus services will resume when the city evaluates the roads are safe.

If residents must leave their homes or are in a vulnerable location, they are advised to seek shelter at the homes of friends or family or at their workplaces. While eight shelters remain open throughout O’ahu, Randy Collins, director of the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management, said they are not rated for high winds and are not equipped with emergency supplies or sufficient staff.

"We encourage you to leave the space at the refuge areas for those that truly don’t have another place to go, and that way we can save those valuable resources for the people that need them the most,” Collins said. 

Shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday, Collins said there were 99 people in O’ahu shelters, including homeless residents of the city’s Homeless Outreach and Navigation for Unsheltered Persons facility. On Maui County, 40 people were reportedly in shelters as of about 4:30 p.m.

Honolulu Fire Chief Sheldon Hao said HFD has responded to 40 storm-related calls Saturday, primarily involving torn-off roofs or fallen trees. HFD, the Honolulu Police Department and other agencies including the National Guard have vehicles and resources positioned around the island to respond to emergencies as necessary.

Blangiardi emphasized that, unlike the Kona Low storms in March, “we know what to expect,” and “we’re not going to be surprised by Mother Nature.”

So far, only one person on O’ahu has reported a storm-related injury. Jim Ireland, director of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, said an elderly woman reported being knocked off her feet by a strong gust of wind, but added that her injuries were not serious.

On the other hand, Hao said that a hiker was reportedly stranded on the Lulumahu Falls Trail. Shortly after 6 p.m., he said, rescue workers were ascertaining how to reach the hiker.

Hawaiian Electric announced that, as of 3 p.m. on Saturday, about 44,000 customers statewide were without power. The bulk of those outages — about 32,300 — were on Hawai’i Island, where wind gusts above 70 mph have been recorded. On O’ahu, about 8,400 customers were without power Saturday afternoon, while about 3,300 Maui customers were in an outage as well.

Hawaiian Electric also announced at the same time that it has restored power to more than 42,000 customers on Saturday, but as the storm progresses, customers may experience multiple outages and restorations over time.

As of 5 p.m. Saturday, the storm had dropped up to 20 inches of rain in certain parts of the Big Island. Flash flood warnings are in effect for East Hawai’i until at least 10 p.m. Flood watches are in effect on all islands through at least Sunday night.

 More than 4,000 homes on Hawai’i Island lost power Saturday morning as Hurricane Lala approaches the state.

Hawaiian Electric announced that about 4,050 customers on the island, largely in Puna, North and South Kohala, and South Hilo were without power as of 7 a.m. Meanwhile, about 160 customers in Upcountry Maui and about 100 in the Hawai’i Kai area of O’ahu were also without power at the same time.

Hawaiian Electric staff are addressing the outages, but customers are advised to plan for possible extended outages as the storm progresses. Crews are standing ready to begin damage assessments once it is safe to do so.

The City and County of Honolulu opened eight hurricane refuge centers today at school facilities around the island: Blanche Pope, Kahuku and Nānākuli elementary schools and Castle, Kapolei, Mililani, Moanalua and Roosevelt high schools will remain open as shelters “as conditions warrant.”

All refuge shelters are pet-friendly, but people should bring their own food, water, medications and other supplies whenever possible.

The city relocated 63 residents of the Homeless Outreach and Navigation for the Unsheltered program to the Kapolei High School shelter. Tents at the HONU site are being disassembled until storm conditions abate.

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply has advised residents to conserve water throughout the storm in case of power outages. According to a city announcement, the water system’s pumps rely on electricity to operate, so conservation can maintain reservoir levels and reduce system demand during an outage.

Residents are also urged to avoid hazardous ocean conditions, as lifeguards in Waikīkī and Ala Moana conducted 95 rescues on Friday alone. High surf warnings remain in effect for the windward shores of all islands at least until 6 a.m. Sunday.

All city parks and recreational facilities will close at 6 p.m. until further notice, including for permitted activities such as overnight camping. The city will assess on Sunday when it might be safe to reopen them. 

 "Damaging hurricane-force winds are expected on the Big Island of Hawai‘i later today, with the strongest wind gusts expected in areas of higher terrain," reports the 

 as it tracks Tropical Storm Lala. "Tropical-storm-force winds are already beginning on the Big Island, and preparations should now be complete. Tropical-storm-force wind gusts are also beginning across portions of the smaller islands and should continue through Sunday."

CPHC said that ﻿﻿﻿the Hawai‘i Island will see increasingly heavy rainfall this morning, which will then spread west across the Islands through the weekend.

"This rainfall will produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in areas of steep terrain," said CPHC. "﻿﻿﻿Large and dangerous waves are expected across portions of the Hawaiian Islands this weekend. Surf is already building along east-facing shores and will increase along exposed southern shores as Lala passes through the region. This heavy surf may cause localized coastal flooding and significant beach erosion."

Read on for the latest updates, including reports on official preparations underway.

As of 5 p.m. on Friday, Tropical Storm Lala is approximately 235 miles east south-east of South Point, Hawaiʻi and 440 miles southeast of Honolulu with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour.

Gov. Josh Green called Lala an “enormous storm” during a press conference Friday. 

“Let’s just say this: it’s going to be a heck of a lot of wind and water."

“Just be very safe throughout this storm,” Green said. “We can repair roads, we can replace cars, we can fix schools but it’s hard for us if we lose one of the people we love.”

The storm is currently moving at 14 miles per hour and is anticipated to reach Hawaiʻi Island Saturday morning and Oʻahu Saturday evening.

The National Weather Service issued a tropical storm warning for the counties of Maui, Oʻahu and Kauaʻi on Friday. Hawaiʻi Island remains under a hurricane warning as the storm is expected to become a category 1 hurricane by the time it reaches the island, bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds that may cause flooding and landslides.

NWS Meteorologist John Bravender said that Lala is on track to reach just south of Hawaiʻi Island but it’s uncertain how the storm will interact with its terrain.

Residents are encouraged to review their emergency plan, secure outdoor items, charge electronic devices and have enough food, water and supplies. 

Hawaiʻi Department of Defense Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Stephen Logan said Friday that the Hawaiʻi National Guard is prepared to support county and state emergency response efforts with the activation of 180 Hawaiʻi National Guard personnel across the state and military high-yield vehicles. The Coast Guard is prepared to conduct search and rescue efforts, if needed.

Hurricane Lala impacts

<title>LALA UPDATE: Government offices, public schools reopen Tuesday on Honolulu, Maui, Kauaʻi…</title>

Government offices and schools will remain closed on Tuesday, Aug. 18 for Hawaiʻi County. Here are the latest state and county updates.

LALA UPDATE: Government offices, public schools reopen Tuesday on Honolulu, Maui, Kauaʻi counties

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Columnists

If you’re a street junkie, shooting up heroin in Chinatown, the State of Hawai‘i has your back. It’ll take our tax dollars and turn them into clean needles, so you can keep on shooting safely.

Fentanyl addict? Go for it! Chances are you’ll never get busted for public intoxication (though it’s a crime), or possession (a crime), and if you overdose, the state will once again turn tax dollars into Narcan to save your life. All your emergency rooms visits? Not to worry! “The people” have you covered with their tax dollars and inflated insurance premiums.

If you’re an alcoholic, the State of Hawai‘i just doesn’t care. Legislators drink, after all, they’re not going to go after their own Heineken and Merlot. Just don’t drink and drive, that’s the only area where we see public policy put any time and money. Everyone seems perfectly confident that ID checks at the liquor store are keeping booze out of the hands of children.

Love pot? Lucky you live Hawai‘i! Hawai‘i loves pot and Hawai‘i loves you! It’s de facto legal, based on how often you can smell pot in the open. And it’s trivially easy to go the law-abiding medical marijuana route. Tell a doctor you’re anxious, get a prescription and it’s off the pot pharmacy you go. Enjoy! After all, we’ve hashed this issue out for years now and all sensible people agree that drug prohibitions never work. You have to respect people’s choices and just legalize and tax their habit.

But if you’re a smoker who’d like to quit smoking cigarettes by going to a safer but similar alternative, this same State of Hawai‘i has just two words.

, Gov. Josh Green just signed a law that as of January 1, 2027, will ban “99.9% of disposable vapes” in Hawai‘i. Flanked by public health officials and the obligatory Child For Whom We Do This, he positively beamed with pride.

Over what, exactly? Doctor Governor Green should be aware that if harm reduction works for hard drugs, it certainly does with nicotine. The UK’s NHS (formerly known as the National Health Service), which is beloved by American Democrats as an ideal model of universal health care, has 

“In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes, and can help you quit smoking for good. … Many thousands of people in the UK have already stopped smoking with the help of an e-cigarette. There's evidence that they can be effective. A 2021 review found people who used e-cigarettes to quit smoking, as well as having expert face-to-face support, can be up to twice as likely to succeed as people who used other nicotine replacement products, such as patches or gum.”

Our reporter asked Green about that. He replied with skepticism, saying, “The biggest problem has been getting an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers hooked,” Green said. “Society has found ways to quit traditional cigarettes through medical means, through behavioral techniques; we should lean on those.”

Does he even hear himself? He said this while signing an e-cig prohibition law. Not medical means, not behavioral techniques, no, just the ban hammer. Meanwhile, actual tobacco cigarettes, the really dangerous ones we didn’t ban, remain perfectly available.

Then Green put Lola Irvin on the spot for further comment on our question. Irvin is administrator of the state Department of Health’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division. As we reported, she said adults who have concurrently used traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking, while young people who begin using e-cigarettes are more likely to transition to smoking traditional cigarettes.

[{"type":"text","text":"So much for harm reduction!"}]

Irvin seems unaware of the NHS findings I shared above about people successfully using e-cigs to quit tobacco cigarettes or reduce their intake. There are other studies.

Efficacy and Safety of E-Cigarette Use for Smoking Cessation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

,” for example, published in 2023 at The American Journal of Medicine. Conclusion: “Nicotine e-cigarettes were associated with increased smoking abstinence in comparison with non-nicotine e-cigarettes. Furthermore, nicotine and non-nicotine e-cigarettes increased abstinence compared with conventional smoking cessation therapies, and the absolute risk of [Serious Adverse Events] was low across all trials. Overall, these data suggest e-cigarettes appear to be more efficacious than conventional nicotine replacement or behavioral smoking cessation therapies.”

, published last November. “Nicotine e-cigarettes can help people to stop smoking for at least six months,” it concludes. “Evidence shows they work better than nicotine replacement therapy, and probably better than e-cigarettes without nicotine. They may work better than no support, or behavioral support alone, and may not be associated with serious unwanted effects.”

As for her arguments that e-cigs and vaping makes teenagers more likely to take up smoking real tobacco cigarettes, there are indeed studies that find teens given to try vices will try both vaping and smoking, sometimes in that order, sometimes the other way around. These studies find they’ll often also try pot and booze.

When you measure what youths actually do, however, the astonishing and wonderful fact is that 

peaked in 1997 at 36.4%, considerably higher than the adult rate that year of 24.7%. By 2021, the youth smoking rate dropped to just 3.8%, well below the adult rate of 11.5%.

That’s an 86% decline in just 24 years, across all ethnicities, sexes and grade levels.

And it has dropped even more since then, despite the arrival of e-cigs and vaping. As of 2024, according to the 

, just 1.4% of high school students reported any use of tobacco cigarettes.

, found that from 2022 to 2025, e-cigarette and tobacco cigarette use among youth further declined while nicotine pouch use remained low and stable.

In other words, we won the war on youth smoking, without any prohibitions at all. When our governor says that "an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers" have just been "hooked" on nicotine, he is flat out lying. The exact opposite is true. 

Rather than declare victory and keep on with existing, obviously effective policies, Hawai‘i snatched a crisis from the jaws of success and enacted this ban.

Because they did so in part to “protect our keiki,” they had a student speak at yesterday's press conference, Maya Butts. The bathrooms at her school, Kalaheo High School, she said have become just “places to vape.”

That’s surely against school rules and is certainly already illegal, so this sounds like an enforcement problem to me. Except the enforcers failed to uphold existing law. Then she said:

“I’ve watched my smart, athletic friends completely lose their motivation. They got hooked on these devices that taste like candy, move on to other substances, then lose their spark altogether.”

I hate to break it to Butts, but if vaping makes her schoolmates lethargic and lazy, they aren’t vaping nicotine. They’re vaping pot.

But the ban is about more than health and protecting kids, Green said, and the text of the legislation argues. It’s about protecting the environment. In each disposable vape is a battery and these batteries are getting into the environment, they asserted, without data.

Setting aside the fact that I’ve never seen the gutters lined with thrown-away vapes the way one used to see cigarette butts, I’ll just note that this is the same state government that is forcing us to import batteries by the tons for our carbon-free solar future. A half-ton battery in every EV. Batteries the size of a Matson cargo container for the solar farms. All with no plan for their disposal or recycling.

OK, so if you dig into facts and find that there is no youth smoking crisis, and the stated rationalizations for the ban range from transparently bogus to logically inconsistent, what’s really going on here?

[{"type":"text","text":"Class warfare, that’s what."}]

Vaping nicotine is, by and large, a lower-middle class and working-class vice. Construction laborers, single moms working two or three jobs, people who ride the bus. People who rent. They have ambitions and aspirations constantly thwarted by Hawai‘i high cost of living and ridiculously unnecessary housing shortage.

They’re tired, they’re stressed. They turned, at some point in their lives, to Kool Milds and Marlboro Lights to deal with it all. They know smoking is bad, though, but quitting is hard. Smoking is a pleasure, it’s a consolation. It both calms anxiety and sharpens concentration.

Then, miracle of miracles, technology gave them a better choice. Tobacco-free nicotine they can inhale for the same soothing, sensual pleasures they got from smoking, with none of the known carcinogens, none of the pilau smell.

On the other hand, we have the upper-middle class and those who aspire to that status. Your governors, legislators, health department careerists and high school faculty. People with social capital and clout, if not vast wealth beyond the equity in their home that they own. Few to none of these white-collar, college-educated professionals ever smoked, or quit years ago. They know better.

[{"type":"text","text":"They took one look at vaping and thought, in unison:"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“That looks stupid. That looks tacky. That looks low-class.”"}]

That’s it. That’s the whole mindset. All the people who pushed this ban won’t say it, because they know how it sounds. No one wants to be seen as a snob and a Karen, they want to hide that. So they prop up children as human shields, gin up a non-existent crisis and use health and the environment as fig leaves.

All those smiling faces at that press conference? That’s the look of people gloating in triumph.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We took something stupid away from the stupid people! Yay, us!”"}]

That’s all that happened yesterday, and Hawai‘i is a better place as a result. For them.

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.

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<title>Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban</title>

On Tuesday, Hawai‘i Gov. Josh Green signed into law a ban on "99.9% of disposable vapes." It's a move totally at odds with the harm reduction strategies the state uses for all other vices, argues ASD Editor in Chief A. Kam Napier. And it's in response to a non-existent crisis, in that teen smoking and vaping is the lowest it's ever been in a quarter century.

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