The more the Maui County Liquor Commission seems to hear about Kihei Kalama Village (KKV) , the less it seems to do. At the commission’s Sept. 12 hearing, ambiguous, contradictory information from the Maui Police Department and KKVlicensees led the panel to take no action on the controversial collection of bars and restaurants.
“We’re still faced with fixing this,”Commissioner Curt Morimoto said during the hearing. “[T]here needs to be some change.”
But a few minutes later the commission adjourned without making–or even suggesting–what that change might be.
MPDSergeant Mervin Ching of the Patrol Division listed KKV incidents from July and August:assaults, fights, challenges to cops, public drunkeness. According to Ching, his cops responded to 32 incidents in July and 24 in August.
“Calls for service have gone down,”Ching told the commissioners, “but assaults have continued.”Ching added that because the department was getting less calls to KKV, they were actually able to make more arrests:10 in July and another five in August.
But KKV licensees insisted that things in the area have gotten much better. “Ifeel it [crime] has gone down quite a bit,”Ben Alvarado of Delta Security, which patrols KKV, said. “We can do a whole lot better, but it’ll take time.”
The commission seems more than willing to wait.
-Anthony Pignataro
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