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Kady Pascual

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"You can’t even tell them apart!"}]

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WaikikiBrewingCo_Street

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: The guest trap</title>

Today’s social media find comes from @WaikikiBrewingCo_Street, whose servers are switching places.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: The guest trap

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Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

Food & Dining

Restauranteur Ted Davenport has spent three decades in Hawai‘i's food scene. His latest endeavor brings a coffee brand founded in Hawai‘i to Honolulu's Kaimukī neighborhood.

Bad Ass Coffee of Hawai‘i's newest location at 3502-C Wai‘alae Ave. opens March 13.

[{"type":"text","text":"It's been a long time coming, Davenport told Aloha State Daily."}]

"We thought we'd open last May," he said after commenting on the lengthy permitting process.

Davenport will operate the store in partnership with 

Galu and Diane Tagovailoa, parents of NFL quarterback 

"His parents are really good friends of mine and they wanted to have a business in Hawai‘i, so we kind of put this together," he said.

Bad Ass Coffee of Hawai‘i was founded on Hawai‘i Island in 1989, "with a goal of sharing American-grown, premium Hawaiian coffee from Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Maui, Molokai, Kona and Ka‘u with coffee lovers everywhere," its 

. There are nearly 40 franchise locations across the U.S., with 63 shops in various stages of development.

, there's currently one other location in Hawai‘i — at 3636 Lower Honoapi‘ilani Road in West Maui. 

The new Kaimukī shop spans 1,234 square feet and is expected to create 14 to 16 new jobs, a recent announcement noted. 

Davenport is a former firefighter who, in 1988, was looking for a way to supplement his income when he "got into the Subway franchise business" and ultimately partnered with Subway to develop the brand in Hawai‘i, he told ASD. He left the fire department in the early 2000s and focused on developing brands. He also brought Ruby Tuesdays to the Islands and helped develop and open a number of other eateries.

When asked how he got involved with Bad Ass Coffee, Davenport says that Subway had sold; the company was going to buy him out but he wanted to "continue on doing something." He had been looking at coffee opportunities since his daughter went to college in Oregon and he saw the coffee concepts that were available in the Oregon and Washington area.

"I was trying to see what different concepts were out there and I visited different coffee concepts," he says. "What I liked about Bad Ass is they give you pure product. And when I say that, if you order an iced coffee or iced latte, the ice is made out of coffee. If you order our Frappuccinos ... it comes out of a tailor-made machine, which is cream and coffee, then we add the flavors. We don't use ice."

[{"type":"text","text":"Ice is only used in energy drinks and smoothies, he noted."}]

Reaching this point "feels real good," Davenport told ASD. "It was a long process and to get there, you just have to have the patience and understand that [not] everything's going to happen in a moment. But I enjoy developing. I enjoy giving a product to the customer that they're going to really enjoy and come back and tell somebody about it. That gives me the thrill of doing what I keep on doing."

[{"type":"text","text":"Davenport plans to open three locations in total."}]

Bad Ass Coffee of Hawai‘i — Honolulu will be open from 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

"I want people to come in and try our product and give us a feedback on what they think and [if] they see something we can improve or do," Davenport says. "We'd love to hear feedback from the public and our customers. It always helps us to be able to grow the brand and give them what they want."

Interested in your own franchise? Find more information 

. Franchisees can expect to invest between $526,100 to $992,400, the announcement notes.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Meaning behind the name"}]

According to the company's site, for generations, donkeys of Kona "could be heard bellowing as they carried precious loads of coffee beans down the steep mountains of the Big Island." The people of Kona name these animals the "'bad ass ones' because of their reliably strong but stubborn nature in carrying their precious cargo."

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Badass coffee 030626

<title>Bad Ass Coffee opens in Kaimukī March 13</title>

You'll find the newest location at 3502-C Wai‘alae Ave.

Bad Ass Coffee opens in Kaimukī March 13

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

MĀNOA — For once, University of Hawai‘i women's basketball coach Laura Beeman allowed herself to lose her cool in the closing minutes of a game. 

With a large, comfortable lead with 1:22 left in the fourth quarter, Beeman subbed out senior star Imani Perez. The forward from Colorado played all four of her collegiate seasons with the Rainbow Wahine, choosing to stay amid personal challenges and lucrative overtures from other schools to enter the NCAA transfer portal. 

Perez and Beeman shared a long, passionate embrace. The goodbyes for Beeman, who has been at the helm in Mānoa since 2012, never get any easier. Relationships with players like Perez are why she sticks around year after year, despite a 

 that's continuously added more to her plate.

"I don't know if I did [compose myself]," Beeman said following the team's emphatic 67-49 victory over Cal State Fullerton. "I took a really deep breath. I always say if someone is in your life and they're worth enough for you to cry over, both of you guys have done something great, and I've shed a lot of tears over that kid. I'm more than happy to do it again. Just water in my garden. That's all."

In its home finale for the 2025-2026 season, the Rainbow Wahine improved to 18-10 overall and 12-6 in Big West Conference play. The Rainbow Wahine, after starting their conference slate 0-5, have won 12 of their last 13 games. 

All three of Hawai‘i's seniors were in the starting lineup on Saturday night in Perez, forward Saniyah Neverson and guard Izzy Forsyth, her first start of the season. Neverson had 12 points and seven rebounds with four assists, while Forsyth added eight points, splashing a pair of 3-pointers. Perez, one of the conference's most respected defensive players, had two blocks to go with her eight points and eight rebounds. 

Forsyth spent her first three years at UC San Diego, while Neverson came to UH after three seasons at Northern Arizona. To Beeman, both were able to fit in with the team seamlessly. 

"It's just tears of being so proud of these kids for what they've done, the way that this team loves each other, the fans that come out, and then just to watch the young women and the growth they've had, whether it's for a year or four years, it just makes me incredibly proud," Beeman said. 

The Rainbow Wahine could have folded after their unideal start to conference play but stuck together. In Beeman's eyes, it was Perez who kept the team together as a group with seven freshmen adjusting to the pace of the college game. 

"Defensively, I had concerns, because our defensive system can be a little bit complex, and the fact that this group has picked it up as well as they have is not surprising, but really fun to watch, and it's led by Imani," Beeman said. "She's been our glue all season long, and does so much work on that side of the ball."

When Perez checked out of a game at the Stan Sheriff Center for the last time, the exchange meant as much to her as it did her coach. 

"We love each other," Perez said. "She's very special in my heart, and I've confided in her a lot. And so there is a love there between us."

The victory moved the Rainbow Wahine into a tie for fourth place in the conference standings. The 'Bows will play at UC Riverside on Thursday and at Long Beach State on Saturday to close out their regular season before the conference tournament in Henderson, Nev. from March 11-14. 

"I think we're peaking at the right time," Beeman said. "We have two more huge games on the road, and then we're going to go to the tournament. Let's hope that we just continue to play well at the tournament."

Added Perez: "I just think we showed that we're ready and that we've grown. We've had great growth as a team, as a staff, just everything completely all together. We've grown and we've been more prepared now, and we've seen all the teams, and we know how they're ready to play us, and we're ready to play them back. We're ready just to get out there and compete."

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Hawaii WBB senior night full team 022826

<title>Hawai‘i women's basketball routs Cal State Fullerton on senior night</title>

The Rainbow Wahine have won 12 of their last 13 games heading into the final week of the regular season.

Hawai‘i women's basketball routs Cal State Fullerton on senior night

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

A state proposal to limit the governor’s emergency powers has been lambasted as government overreach.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, then-Gov. David Ige made more than 20 consecutive emergency proclamations that suspended various state statutes without oversight from other branches of government.

 is a measure drafted partially in response to those proclamations, attempting to define what the governor or any county mayor can and cannot do through an emergency declaration.

But the bill has drawn controversy from individuals who believe the bill signifies an attempt to codify extrajudicial authorities for the executive branch.

 submitted in advance of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday excoriated the bill, with dozens calling it governmental overreach empowering the governor to activate sweeping powers on a whim.

“[SB 2151 hands] one person — the governor — near-unchecked power to declare emergencies, suspend our rights, enter our property without permission, lock us down, seize assets, or disarm us, all with too-little real accountability from the Legislature or courts,” read one letter by resident Dawn O’Brien, which echoed sentiments repeated through much of the testimony at Tuesday’s hearing.

However, this is not what the bill does. Karl Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the bill’s primary introducer, told the committee 

 that he intended the measure to restrict the governor’s powers, and that much of the opposition facing the bill appears to be misdirected.

“There’s been a lot of testimony opposed to it seemingly thinking that this bill was expanding the governor’s power and it is certainly not,” Rhoads said.

As currently written, the bill prohibits any emergency declaration from overriding the state’s requirement to respond to public records requests in a timely manner.

Ige’s early Covid proclamations suspended the Uniform Information Practices Act, which requires public agencies’ records to be open to public inspection and review. They also included a partial suspension of the Sunshine Law — which requires state and county boards to hold meetings open to the public — to allow for meetings to be held entirely remotely.

, in Feb. 2021, the UIPA was only suspended insofar as agencies did not have to adhere to deadlines. However, the partial Sunshine Law suspension continued.

SB 2151 specifically prohibits a governor or mayor from suspending deadlines to respond to UIPA requests, or deadlines for the Department of Health to provide various patient vital records. However, the bill allows for a “reasonable delay” for the DOH to provide the latter during extenuating circumstances.

For those laws that can still be suspended through an emergency proclamation, another section of the bill specifically details how those suspensions can be carried out. As stated in the bill, any suspension of law cannot last any longer “than the governor deems necessary for the execution of emergency management functions.”

The same applies for county laws and emergency proclamations issued by mayors.

For every law suspended, the bill specifies that any emergency proclamation must identify the specific statutes affected and explain why the suspension is necessary for emergency management.

Furthermore, the bill introduced by Rhoads would amend the emergency powers law to allow the state Legislature to terminate a gubernatorial state of emergency by a two-thirds majority vote. The same goes for county councils, which could vote to end a county state of emergency by a two-thirds majority.

The latest version of the bill also amends the statutory definition of “emergency” to specify that it must be an imminent threat of a disaster that could cause “catastrophic harm and immediate danger” and that could be averted or minimized through timely action. Rhoads said Tuesday that this precludes the possibility of the governor issuing emergency proclamations regarding homelessness, which Rhoads noted “has been with us for many years.”

This isn’t the first time Rhoads has attempted to pass a similar bill. Last year, 

 — which proposed much the same changes as SB 2151, with much less public opposition — came very close to passing, but failed in April over disagreements between the House and Senate regarding various amendments made to the measure.

But while the bill may not be an expansion of the governor’s powers, it has attracted criticism from other directions. Several testifiers argued that the bill still allows the governor or mayor to be the sole judge of whether something is an emergency, and to continually re-issue consecutive proclamations despite an existing statute that automatically terminates a state of emergency after 60 days.

Nor does the bill remove existing statutes allowing the governor to enforce quarantines against people believed to be infected with a deadly contagion, or to seize and destroy property, or to authorize unpermitted entry onto private property, or seize firearms, all of which dozens of testifiers have demanded to be changed.

On the other hand, several groups voiced support for the bill, including the Grassroot Institute of Hawai‘i, which lauded the measure’s ability to both preserve the intent of emergency statutes while also checking the executive branch’s power.

The state Office of Information Practices, which responds to UIPA requests, took no stance on the measure, stating that the matter “is a policy decision for the Legislature to determine.” However, OIP confirmed that the suspensions of the UIPA during the pandemic “had a significant effect on requesters, agencies and OIP’s own operations,” with people experiencing long delays before receiving official responses to record requests.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took no action on the measure on Tuesday, with Rhoads deferring any decision on the matter until March 5. A corresponding bill, House Bill 2236, passed second reading in the House on Feb. 18, but has not yet been scheduled in that chamber’s own judiciary committee.

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: The guest trap

Kady Pascual

Social Media Editor

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Kady Pascual

Social Media Editor

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