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ASD Staff

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"The best UPS driver ever....."}]

Smile 26 7

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, July 23, 2026</title>

The best UPS driver ever.....

Daily Smile: Thursday, July 23, 2026

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Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

The Hawai‘i Supreme Court has overturned Maui County rules exempting certain projects within the Maui Special Management Area from requiring a permit.

 dictates how Hawai‘i’s counties manage their special management zones, vulnerable shoreline areas at the periphery of every island. The CZMA, in part, requires special management area use permits for any “development” within the SMAs, which in turn requires a lengthy public hearing process.

In 2024, the Maui Planning Commission attempted to elide the CZMA by implementing new administrative rules granting 

for certain types of projects within the SMA, excluding them from the need for an SMA permit. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court concluded that the Commission’s rules violated the CZMA.

“[The] amended rules … stripped oversight and procedural safeguards from SMA permitting review,” 

 Associate Justice Todd Eddins for the opinion of the court.

The Planning Commission’s rules allowed projects such as some pavement resurfacing, renovations to existing structures, “limited” ground disturbances for hole boring or trenching, tree trimming or cutting, or the installment of electric vehicle charging stations in existing parking lots.

After being implemented in 2024, the rules were quickly challenged in court by environmental nonprofit 

, which argued that the rules delegated the county’s responsibility for overseeing development to the developers themselves.

The Foundation’s suit against the Commission argued that the rules undermined a necessary process in the CZMA whereby a planning commission reviews specific projects and makes a determination on whether it should be exempt from the permitting process on a case-by-case basis: “unless [the commission] finds no environmental harm, a permit is required,” Eddins wrote.

While the CZMA does allow counties to streamline their permitting processes at their discretion, it does not allow them to bypass the review process by which they determine whether a permit is needed at all, Eddins wrote.

Eddins wrote that the Maui Planning Commission had envisioned “a world where the Commission would have to screen every beachgoer, every sandcastle builder, every tourist on Hawai‘i's beaches.” But by Eddins’ interpretation, the CZMA’s assessment framework already should filter out such minor individual impacts easily, while the Commission’s rules would categorically exclude projects like agricultural grading or utility infrastructure installations from ever requiring a permit.

Furthermore, Eddins wrote, the rules delegated to the developers themselves the responsibility of assessing the impacts of a project, which he opined is a violation of the county’s constitutional duty to protect the state’s natural resources.

The Foundation and other environmental groups testified against the rules when they were being proposed in 2023 and 2024, identifying the rules as potentially unconstitutional violations of the CZMA even then.

At the time, however, the rules also generated their share of support, in many cases from shoreline businesses that would otherwise need to go through lengthy permitting processes in order to continue operating.

The Circuit Court ruled in favor of Maui Tomorrow in 2024, but Maui County appealed the case to the Intermediate Court of Appeals, which then transferred the case to the state Supreme Court.

Eddins’ opinion affirmed the Circuit Court’s decision to partially invalidate the amended rules.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

I Stock 178835830 16x9 Large

<title>State Supreme Court overturns Maui SMA permit exemptions</title>

A 2024 rule allowing certain projects within the Special Management Area to go forward without a use permit has been overturned.

State Supreme Court overturns Maui SMA permit exemptions

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Columnists

This session the legislature raised the income tax on anyone in Hawaiʻi earning more than a million dollars a year. Our 13% top rate now sits among the nation’s highest.

The bill passed quietly. The papers noted it the way they note a road repaving: a thing done, presumably good, needing no comment.

Nobody is weeping for people earning a million dollars a year.

That is precisely why the tax deserves a second look. The measures that pass without argument reveal what a society has stopped arguing about.

Envy is the one vice that never announces itself. Pride struts and greed hoards, but envy always arrives dressed as justice. A tax on millionaires feels like fairness. But fairness is not the only good.

A society can absorb a great deal of unfairness and survive. What it cannot survive is a politics that runs on resentment.

Envy used to know where its target lived. The peasant could see the landlord’s manor from his field, and the plantation worker could see the manager’s house from the rows of pineapple. Hawaiʻi’s own labor movement emerged from those fields with real grievances.

Wealth has since moved out of sight. It lives in brokerage accounts and holding companies now, not on estates. The wealth of the super rich has become intangible, and even their ranches are mirages. Mark Zuckerberg feeds his cattle macadamia nuts on Kauaʻi but eats perfectly well at his home in Palo Alto. Meanwhile, beachfront hotels in Waikīkī are owned by thousands of shareholders. You cannot storm an investment portfolio.

Envy is fed like a furnace. Social media puts every lifestyle on earth in every pocket in Hawaiʻi, heaping the coal into the flames. Envy becomes a mood — a low, constant awareness that somebody, somewhere, has the kitchen or the vacation or the body you were denied. A mood cannot be satisfied, but it can be channeled, and it is channeled toward whatever target happens to be within reach.

On Maui, neighbors were within reach. The short-term-rental phase-out was sold in the language of housing justice, taking from the wealthy to shelter the poor. But the owners it actually strikes are schoolteachers, retirees, the upper middle class — and a seaside condo in Kīhei carrying a $3,000-a-month maintenance fee cannot be cut into four pieces and handed to four needy families. It can only be made worthless, which is a strange kind of charity.

The county plans to phase out roughly 7,000 units, though a cleanup bill 

 could exempt 4,500 units. That suggests Maui’s councilmembers have noticed the problem.

The partisans of envy are running the same play on the Mainland. New York has Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax. California has a wealth tax on the ballot, from which the billionaires are already excusing themselves by moving out of state.

The fair-minded reader will object that we owe something to the needy, and the reader is right. The widow and the orphan have a standing claim on us, and it’s older than any state. But the objection assumes the claim must be discharged through the state. Taxes for the rich, assistance programs for the poor.

Hawaiʻi already carries one of the heaviest state-and-local tax burdens in the country. The needy are not much better off for it. The burden of our state shows up in the rent, in the grocery bill, in the exodus of local families headed to Las Vegas. A man who can imagine no way to feed a widow except by voting to tax his neighbor has not discovered compassion. He has misplaced his imagination, and it is worth asking where he lost it.

He lost it at school. Consider the life of the average humanities Ph.D.: nine years spent in college and graduate school, paid for with loans and forgone wages. Now, a lottery for a shrinking number of academic posts, stagnant pay, and a publish or perish culture.

Nearing 30, our young doctor has many degrees, but no clear path to supporting a family. He has to take a part-time job as a barista to pay the bills. Meanwhile, his high school classmate who skipped college to fix air conditioners owns a home by the time of their 10-year class reunion.

A man in the professor’s position does not need much to grow resentful. He only needs to marinate. The trouble is that his marinade becomes his students’ curriculum. The resentment gets footnoted and graded. The graduates leave catechized in a simple creed: every problem is a distribution problem, and every solution is a state solution. Take from the rich, and give to the poor. Take from them, and give to me.

Our young professor enjoys a standard of living beyond nearly every human who has ever lived. He carries in his pocket marvels his grandparents would have gladly sweated in the pineapple fields to afford. None of it satisfies. He only needs to see someone doing slightly better, and the resentment is stoked again. Social media is happy to oblige.

That is why the millionaire tax will not be the last. Envy is not a debt that can be paid down because every payment enlarges the claim. When the millionaires have been taxed, the mood will remain, and it will go looking for whoever is next within reach.

This is an old road. The first murder was not committed for money or land. It was committed because one brother’s offering was blessed and the other’s offering was not. Envy had finished its work in Cain long before he lifted his hand. It hollowed him first. It always hollows the envier first, depriving him of the blessings he has by making them invisible.

The exit is not a cleverer tax or a purer market. It is contentment — the settled conviction of having received more than one was owed. It frees a man to look at his neighbor’s good fortune and simply be glad.

Nobody weeps for millionaires. Nobody needs to. They were never the ones in danger.

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Firefly Gemini Flash illustration of tax a millionaire 593166

<title>Hawaiʻi millionaire tax: Why the new 13% bracket won’t be the last</title>

The millionaire tax passed with barely a murmur. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why the measures nobody argues about deserve the second look.

Hawaiʻi millionaire tax: Why the new 13% bracket won’t be the last

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Rick Hamada

[{"type":"text","text":"We're an interesting group of people in Hawai‘i."}]

 our Hawai‘i dead last in the nation for doing business. 

 ranking for Best and Worst States to Start a Business for 2026 places Hawai‘i 48th.

 Magazine ranked Best States for Business. Hawai‘i was ranked 47th.

 in September of 2000: "Commerce Department lists Hawai‘i with the Worst Economy in the 1990s."

This documents in terms that businesses here and our local economy have been struggling for generations — as far back as the 

We all know that a good business environment and vibrant economic vitality equal a positive community. It truly is the difference between surviving and thriving.

But over these generations there has been a dearth of outrage, of demands that we reverse direction and of calls for substantive improvement that would be a benefit to all from citizens. Instead, we are fed the same tepid swill from politicians who promise "change" while lording over one of the worst economic states in the country.

[{"type":"text","text":"Let's call it as it is."}]

It is the single-party rule of the Democrat majority that is responsible for the across-the-board assessments from disinterested parties that Hawai‘i has failed its citizens for all these years.

But there are moments when the people of Hawai‘i took action for the ever-elusive change.

Republican Linda Lingle lost by a slim 5,000 or so votes in the 1998 General Election to Democratic incumbent Governor Ben Cayetano.

It didn't make sense. An incumbent democrat governor should skate back into office. Instead it became the closest gubernatorial election in Hawai‘i history.

Yes, Linda Lingle served as the mayor of Maui, but a Neighbor Island politician had never risen to the top of the state government hierarchy. Her background was antithetical to the formula of a winning candidate for Hawai‘i governor. She was single, Jewish female who worked briefly with the Teamsters Union and published a community newspaper on Molokai.

[{"type":"text","text":"And she was a Republican."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"We have to remember the cause for this political aberration."}]

"It's the economy, stupid."  — James Carville, Democrat political strategist.

In 1998, Hawai‘i was experiencing its worst economic slump since statehood, marked by a seven-year recession.

Businesses faced devastating conditions driven by the 1997 Asian financial crisis that severely depressed tourism, the prolonged decline of the local sugar and pineapple industries, and some of the highest operational costs in the nation.

This was marked by the "Japanese Bubble" and the associated impacts to virtually all families on all islands. There was a sentiment critical of Governor Cayetano, but it was more of an uprising against the status quo. Keep in mind during Governor Cayetano's first State of the State Address succeeding Governor John Waihee — whom Ben served as Lt. Governor — he announced the state was in a $600 million deficit despite a previously reported $300 million surplus. Necessary changes were in the offing, and some folks were gonna be upset.

There were other issues that roiled locals, and that dissatisfaction was expressed at the ballot box first in 1998 then in 2002 when Lingle defeated Lt. Governor Mazie Hirono to become Hawai‘i's first female governor and she served two terms.

All the traditional barricades were erected to prevent changes, yet Linda Lingle's story remains a beacon amongst those who believe that change must happen again.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Fast forward 28 years later."}]

We are still mired in economic doldrums and cost of living in Hawai‘i is a primary issue.

"Hawai‘i is the most expensive state in the United States, and it is not close," writes 

. "If you're researching the cost of living in Hawai‘i because you're thinking about moving here, retiring here, or just understanding what it would actually take — this is the honest 2026 breakdown." Housing on O‘ahu 200% above the national average it notes, groceries 53% above, utilities 70% above.

 than the national average, all costs put together.

During this election year there will be many Democrat incumbents and candidates seeking your vote. They will promise to uphold local values, espouse the importance of standing together, vow to battle against the Trump administration and call for, wait for it, change.  They will ask for your support and your vote.

I would then ask a very simple question, "Why?"

You and your political party have dominated and controlled virtually evey aspect of public policies and creation of laws. Yet when it comes to the very basic and fundamental aspect of a successful community, economics, why has it not improved and continues to languish over so many years?  How are you going to fix it now when you've known of our conditions since the 1990s? It's 30 years later. Do you need another 30 years?

I do not belong to a political party. I am not a Democrat, and I am not a Republican. If the party roles were reversed, then the questions would be demanded from the Republican candidates and leadership.  But it is the Democrat party that has had unilateral control of this state.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"I get it."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"There are some things we can't control."}]

We are the most geographically isolated and populated land mass in the world.

The increasing price of fuel, well, we don't control world markets.

But there are areas where we do have control.

Taxation and spending. This is the most direct way to give people a raise. Decrease taxation and fees and reduce spending.

Regulation increases costs and expense in the building of homes. It is estimated that up to 35% of a single-family home's cost is due to regulations. Reduce regulations and make housing more affordable which is the stated number one priority.

These are just two areas of responsibility government can control but they don't. Why not?

A good question to ask a Democrat incumbent or candidate this election year is this:

"We have an annual state budget of $20.3 billion, of which $10.5 billion is our operating budget. We have a state population of approximately 1.4 million people. Where does all the money go?"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"I'd like to know, too."}]

[{"type":"hardBreak","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":""}]

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Hawaiʻi State Capitol

<title>Hamada: Thirty years of infamy for our business climate — when does that change?</title>

Hawai‘i was just ranked worst in the nation for business. Again. Mainland and local observers have been pointing this out consistently since the 1990s, even, at times, as far back as the 1970s. Well, asks ASD opinion columnist Rick Hamada, who has been in charge all this time?

Hamada: Thirty years of infamy for our business climate — when does that change?

Cheryl Tsutsumi

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi

Aloha Spirit

Vicky Holt Takamine rises with the sun every day to do her morning routine. The respected kumu hula and Hawaiian cultural advocate chops apples, cucumbers, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce and hibiscus from her garden—the daily meal for Henry, her three-year-old African sulcata tortoise. She feeds the fish in her aquaponics system where she’s growing kale, herbs, starter ti leaves and more. She replenishes her bird feeder; cleans and fills water in Henry’s kiddie pool; tends her luxuriant collection of plants; and cuts flowers, which imbue the kitchen and bathrooms of her ‘Aiea home with sweet scents.

It takes Takamine at least two hours to complete everything — evidence of the discipline and commitment she has displayed throughout a life marked by aloha, community service and visionary leadership. In 2025, she was recognized as a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i for her accomplishments — one of several accolades, both local and national, she has received over the years.

It all began with hula. “My mother was my inspiration,” Takamine said. “I used to watch her dance on the ‘Lucky Luck’ TV show in the 1950s. I begged her to let me go to hula classes, but she said I was too young and that I would quit after a year. I proved her wrong!”

At the time, Takamine’s family lived on Kalihi Street behind Leong’s Cafe, which was owned by John Leong and his wife, Lucy, who danced with kumu hula Ma‘iki Aiu Lake’s Hālau Hula O Ma‘iki.

“Aunty Lucy invited my mother to join her in the adult women’s class,” Takamine said. “Mom asked Aunty Ma‘iki if my sister, Charlene, and I could also dance with her. She said we’d have to wait a year, so we did. Charlene was 10 and I was 12 when we started taking lessons from Aunty Ma‘iki in 1960.”

In the ensuing years, Lake started opening doors in the entertainment industry for Takamine. The summer of 1964, after her junior year at Kamehameha Schools, Takamine and other dancers from Hālau Hula O Ma‘iki performed with Bill Ali‘iloa Lincoln at Aloha Tower, greeting passengers who disembarked from cruise ships that moored there.

The following summer, Lake asked Takamine and a few other dancers to join Alice Keawekāne Garner, Loyal Garner’s mother, at what was then called Honolulu International Airport. “There were only two baggage claim areas,” Takamine said, “and we went back and forth, entertaining passengers as they picked up their luggage. That was my first paid job; I earned maybe $15 per day.”

During the 1960s, she also often danced at the Halekulani with Lake and the Kahauanu Lake Trio.

The 1970s brought big changes. Takamine appeared in Waikīkī with other notables, including Pua Almeida, Leinaʻala Haili and Leinaʻala Kalama Heine. She married, had three sons and graduated in 1975 as part of Lake’s second ʻūniki class, which marked her rite of passage from gifted student to kumu hula. Two years later, she opened her own hālau, Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima (royal ‘ilima blossom), which will observe its 50th anniversary next year.

In November 1978, three months after her youngest son was born, Iva Kinimaka called her with a request.

“He said, ‘I need to put together a lūʻau show in four days, and you’re the only person I know who can pull it off,’” Takamine said. “I said, ‘Okay, I’ll take the challenge.’ Because of Aunty Ma‘iki, I had been in enough shows to learn about the business side of entertainment—how sound, music, lighting, costuming and choreography need to come together in a show that audiences will enjoy but that is also profitable.”

Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima was only a year old at the time, but Takamine called on her dancers to perform in the new show. She also enlisted the help of kumu hula friends and their hālau. A business associate whose show had closed had costumes in storage, and he gave her all of them.

“That’s how the Paradise Cove Lūʻau started,” Takamine said. “I wound up directing it for 10 years before I retired from show business.” (That lūʻau closed in December 2025 after a 47-year run.)

While she was working at Paradise Cove, Takamine returned to college, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in dance ethnology from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She taught hula there and at Leeward Community College for a total of 34 years.

The impetus for the PA‘I Foundation came in 1997, when Takamine discovered the state legislature had appropriated $2 million to purchase art for the new Hawai‘i Convention Center, none of it created by Native Hawaiians. Offended, she launched a campaign to form an independent organization to support Hawaiian artists, artisans and cultural practitioners.

Takamine established the PA‘I Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, in 2001 “to preserve and perpetuate Native Hawaiian arts and cultural traditions for future generations.” PAʻI is the acronym for Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima. One of its meanings, “sudden impact,” aligns with her vision for the organization to be a champion for causes that serve and uplift the lāhui (Hawaiian people).

Both the foundation and Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima are based at the PAʻI Arts & Cultural Center (PACC) in Kaka‘ako, the result of Takamine’s efforts to provide Hawaiians with a place to practice and showcase their art. Thanks to funding from the Ford Foundation, the PA‘I Foundation was able to partner on the project with Artspace, a Minneapolis-based developer specializing in affordable spaces for artists to live, work and play.

Although it took 13 years to come to fruition, Takamine was thrilled to see PACC open in December 2023 on the ground floor of the eight-story Ola Ka ʻIlima Artspace Lofts, 84 residential/atelier units occupied by Hawaiian artists and their families. PACC hosts classes ranging from featherwork and lei making to lauhala weaving and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. Concerts, storytelling, poetry readings, panel discussions, film presentations and other special events also take place there. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Not one to rest on her laurels, Takamine points out the need for constant reflection. “How can we continue to strengthen our lāhui?” she said. “We’ve accomplished a lot, but there’s still much more to do. I’ll say to my hālau and PAʻI team, ‘I have another idea,’ and they’ll smile and think, ‘Here she goes again!’”

Coming Up

Following are the PA‘I’ Foundation’s classes and events for August and September. All are open to the public and will be held at PACC, 1034 Kawaiaha‘o Street, unless otherwise noted. Visit paifoundation.org for details.

August 1: Painting workshop with Meala Bishop

August 2: Concert by jazz fusion band Music Magic

August 5: Classes begin for new Pua Ali‘i ‘Ilima students

August 8: Painting workshop with Brook Parker

September 11: MAMo (Maoli Arts Movement) Wearable Art Show, Tapa Ballroom, Hilton Hawaiian Village

September 12: Māhū Madness, Tapa Ballroom, Hilton Hawaiian Village

Vicky Holt Takamine main

<title>Uncles and Aunties: Vicky Holt Takamine, legendary kumu hula</title>

“My mother was my inspiration,” Takamine told ASD. “I used to watch her dance on the ‘Lucky Luck’ TV show in the 1950s. I begged her to let me go to hula classes, but she said I was too young and that I would quit after a year. I proved her wrong!” In 2025, she was recognized as a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i for her accomplishments — one of several accolades, both local and national, she has received over the years for her contributions to hula and Native Hawaiian arts and culture.

Uncles and Aunties: Vicky Holt Takamine, legendary kumu hula

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

Business & Tourism

For business owner Vanessa Pascua, taking over 

 last year was a full-circle moment. She heard the okazuya was for sale, but didn’t seriously contemplate buying it at first.

“I was still pregnant with my son (when I found out it was for sale),” she says. “I worked for Todd (Matsumoto, the owner of Matsumoto’s Okazuya) when I was 15; it was actually my first job.

“I joked with Jay (my business partner), ‘It would be crazy if we took it over,’” she remembers.

The okazuya stayed on Pascua’s mind, and she ended up reaching out to Matsumoto about the space.

“I texted him, ‘Do you remember me, I used to work for you,’ and he was like, ‘Yes, Vanessa, how could I forget you?’” she chuckles. “I told him that I was interested in buying. We bought the business, but we didn’t buy the property. If we hadn’t taken over, he would have closed by December 2025, and that would have been it.”

Pascua and Jay Palma officially took over the business last August. Matsumoto’s Okazuya opened in 2005, so the duo took over during its 20th anniversary.

“The day we took over, we did free chow fun with every purchase,” Pascua says. “It didn’t matter if you just bought a drink; it was one free order of chow fun per person. We want to do that every year, in honor of us taking over.”

On Aug. 1 — the business’s one-year anniversary under Pascua and Palma’s ownership — customers can enjoy a free chow fun order with purchase. The business is now called Matsumoto’s Okazuya by JV Kitchen — for Jay and Vanessa — but its menu is mostly the same, according to Pascua.

Customers can choose from an assortment of okazu items — ranging from chow mein ($3.63) and fried chicken ($3.63) to fish patty ($3.12), kimchi sausage ($2.86) and croquettes ($2.08) — or choose from pre-set bentos.

When it comes to the okazu offerings, Pascua recommends the vegetable tempura, kimchi sausage, garlic chicken and chow fun noodles.

“Our kimchi sausage is good; I don’t think a lot of other places have that,” she says.

[{"type":"text","text":"She also encourages customers to keep an eye out for featured specials."}]

“Jay is really good at cooking,” she says. “Even prior to buying the restaurant, he’s always made his own concoctions; that’s where the specials come from. Sometimes he features Filipino dishes and fish items like butteryaki and furikake ‘ahi katsu.”

While the biz often sells out of its okazu items by noon, they do their best to accommodate customers, Pascua says.

“If you give us a call, we’ll put the food off to the side,” she says. “If someone wants to pre-order, we place it (their food) on the side and put it in heaters.”

The okazuya’s Matsumoto ($15.52), Tyler ($14.49) and Taylor ($15.52) bentos are still on the menu, according to Pascua; the latter two are named after Matsumoto’s kids. Newer additions include the JV bento ($14.49) — which includes white rice with furikake, JV garlic chicken, hoki, tofu nuggets, teriyaki hamburger and takuan — and the fish bento ($16.10). The latter features chow mein and white rice with miso butterfish, teriyaki beef, hoki, a fried oyster and a tofu nugget.

“We just came out with the JV bento,” Pascua says. “We were brainstorming what we wanted in the bento; I like teri hamburgers and smashburgers, so we did a hamburger patty and teri sauce. I love the garlic chicken; not a lot of people get it because they don’t know how good it is.

“The prices on our menus are all card prices; it’s cheaper if you pay cash,” she adds.

The biz also features daily plates — which are more plate lunch-style — and include two scoops of white rice and one scoop of potato mac salad. The barbecue mix ($17.60) — barbecue chicken, teriyaki beef and kalbi — JV garlic chicken ($15.52 regular, $13.47 mini) and kalbi ($17.60 regular, $15.86 mini) plates are the most popular options, according to Pascua.

“We introduced the barbecue mix, kalbi and garlic chicken (plates) about two months ago,” she says. “Those really hit it off, I think, because of the portions. He (Jay) doesn’t skimp on the portions.”

In June, the okazuya closed briefly for renovations. New cabinets were added and the interior layout was altered, according to Pascua.

“It’s (the interior) shaped as an L-shape now, so customers can face us directly,” she says. “Previously, there was no ‘hand off/pay station,’ so we were maneuvering around the old display case and it was awkward. We also take card now as well.”

The biz is open for catering any day of the week, according to Pascua, who says that delivery is available.

“We get a lot of inquiries regarding catering; we do a live sushi bar and bento and pan catering,” she says. “We deliver to any celebration of life/mortuaries for free as well.”

Open 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays, 5 a.m. to noon on Saturdays

Matsumotos Okazuya owners 071526

<title>Matsumoto’s Okazuya by JV Kitchen is giving out free chow fun</title>

The Kalihi okazuya is giving out complimentary chow fun with every purchase on Aug. 1 to celebrate its first anniversary under new ownership. Business owners Vanessa Pascua and Jay Palma also recently updated the business’s menu and renovated the okazuya interior.

Matsumoto’s Okazuya by JV Kitchen is giving out free chow fun

Lopaka and Tanya Kapanui

Lopaka Kapanui and Tanya Kapanui

Hawai‘i History

Prior to Western contact, the Waiākea Peninsula at the edge of Hilo Bay sustained a thriving Hawaiian community for generations. As Hilo gradually developed into an important port for the sandalwood trade, supply replenishment, and the whaling industry, the area began to change.

Although the traditional stewardship of the ʻaina ensured the loʻi kalo (taro fields) and the loko iʻa (fishponds) continued to provide food for the area, the peninsula slowly took on a different purpose. Then, the introduction of private ownership through the Great Mahele of 1848 forever changed how Waiākea would be managed.

With the expansion of Hilo Harbor, the wetlands were drained, and fishponds fell into disuse. To accommodate larger ships, the bay was dredged, and the fill from the bay was used to create new land along the shoreline. Ancient canoe landings disappeared beneath that newly created land, and much of the ceremonial landscape surrounding Kūakaʻananuʻu Heiau was erased. Roads, homes, and public buildings gradually spread across the shoreline, covering many of the features that had defined Waiākea for centuries.

Due to the harborʻs continued growth and change, today’s shoreline bears little resemblance to the one that greeted the first Western merchant vessels. During the early 1900s, a new public park was created to honor the last reigning monarch. Liliʻuokalani Gardens, with its walking paths, decorative bridges, and ornamental gardens replaced the loʻi kalo and loko iʻa, creating a space where residents and visitors could enjoy the shores of Hilo Bay.

In 1933, the Hilo Parks Commission invited director Cecil B. DeMille and other celebrities from the film "Four Frightened People" to plant banyan trees along a new roadway. Later that year, Babe Ruth planted a tree, and the road was formally designated the following year in time for a visit from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who planted his own tree. Over time, nearly 50 trees were planted by aviators, entertainers, politicians, and other notable visitors, and the Banyan Drive became known as “Hilo’s Walk of Fame.” In 1939, the Naniloa Hotel opened its doors on the site of a former yacht club, welcoming visitors to its tranquil location by the sea.

Like the rest of Hilo, the Waiākea Peninsula has had to face the destructive power of the sea. Tsunamis in 1946 and 1960 devastated the coast, destroying homes, businesses, and facilities along the waterfront. While many of the banyan trees survived, a new infrastructure once again reshaped the landscape and Banyan Drive soon became the center of Hilo’s visitor industry.

By the 1970s, Banyan Drive was already established as the center of Hilo’s visitor industry. The Naniloa and the new Hilo Hawaiian, along with other new hotels, welcomed travelers from around the world, while nearby golf courses, parks, and public spaces drew both residents and visitors to the bay.

Although centuries of development had transformed nearly every part of the peninsula, places like Mokuola (Coconut Island) continued to preserve a connection to an older Hawaiʻi. The landscape may look different from the days of loʻi kalo, loko iʻa, and Kūakaʻananuʻu Heiau, but its mana cannot be erased.

Perhaps that is why, despite decades of change, stories continue to emerge from Banyan Drive, describing experiences that seem to be connected to a long-lost past. Former staff have mentioned doors of empty rooms rattling for no reason, and housekeeping staff talk of the water faucets in one of the rooms turning on by itself.

However, the scariest stories are the ones about a group of visitors who turn up during specific moon phases, without reservations. One security guard said it starts with the sound of drums. It’s distant, but the sound is a consistent beat that doesn’t change like modern music. As the drums get louder, a mist appears on the building’s mauka side and moves through the wall and the hotel rooms, exiting through the wall on the opposite end of the building on their way to the ocean.

“I know it’s not my imagination,” he said. “The lights dim and flicker, pictures on the wall shake or fall to the floor, sometimes the furniture moves.”

The guard said that the employees at the hotel know to make themselves scarce during that time, but no one really talks about it with each other.

Grand Naniloa Hilo

<title>Night Marchers at the Naniloa</title>

Babe Ruth and President Franklin D. Roosevelt are among the Mainland luminaries who planted banyan trees along Banyan Drive. The history of the Hilo area surrounding the Naniloa Hotel goes back to ancient times, and as hotel staff tell it, on some nights the old days come marching through in a mist.

Daily Smile: Thursday, July 23, 2026

ASD Staff

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Daily Smile: Thursday, July 23, 2026

Authors

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