No side businesses at Hanapepe Art Night This is a follow-up on a letter to the editor published Oct. 20. I am honored that so many people read and responded to the letter. During the next Art Night, six people
No side businesses at Hanapepe Art Night
This is a follow-up on a letter to the editor published Oct. 20. I am honored that so many people read and responded to the letter. During the next Art Night, six people came into my gallery to support the letter, even with some purchases. Mahalo.
In any “problem” we can inevitably discover the hidden opportunity. Here’s taking a closer look at street vending on Kaua‘i and a proposal for a broad win-win collaborative opportunity.
Street vendors are/have/can:
— A creative and growing solution to a declining economy.
— A great way to get into an income-producing business with minimal investment.
— An easy way to learn a small business and maybe build a larger one later.
— They say “location, location, location.” Vendors are mobile and can choose their venues and/or events.
— An opportunity for local entrepreneurs to make some cash in their own neighborhoods.
— Potentially vital, creative and colorful.
— The potential of great diversity and imagination.
— Can readily organize themselves to become a genuine and growing segment of the economy.
— Once organized, this potential is unlimited.
— Vendors have minimal overhead and can underbid fixed traditional businesses.
— Therefore, vendors are less vulnerable to economic turmoil; they have less to lose.
— In Hanapepe, vendors have been nurtured by a decade-and-a-half of advertising, investments and labor by Art Night, galleries and businesses.
— Vendors can now break this dependency on Art Night and stand on their own feet.
Vending is often a solution to a wildly fluctuating economy and visitor arrivals. If I were starting a business now, it would be as a vendor. Vending has potential.
Art Night was conceived and nurtured for two reasons: Art, and attracting art lovers. Not food and drink booths, not books, not even crafts, etc.
The hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours invested by Hanapepe businesses to bring the town back from the brink can only be paid back by direct sales to visitors and residents who seek art. Every minute on the street is a minute lost in the galleries.
My gallery does 40 percent to 50 percent of its sales on Art Night. We see more visitors on Art Night than during the week.
Consider this: My gallery overhead and expenses are 80 percent of the take. I have taken a second job teaching at Kaua‘i Community College to make ends meet. My gallery investment over the last 15 years is not ever likely to get repaid at my 20 percent gallery income. These are just the facts. I have no complaints.
Here’s a proposal for vendors:
— Vendors will feel empowered when they strike out on their own. It is actually unhealthy for vendors to keep piggybacking on the businesses that developed Art Night, like adult-children still depending on their parents.
— Create your own (legal) festive event from any of the 168 hours per week, and leave our three wee hours of Art Night to the fine art galleries. They are taken (non-negotiable). We’ve earned them.
— Furthermore, don’t limit yourself to Hanapepe! Being mobile, you have the whole island at your fingertips. Do a quality Street Fest event every day of the week in some town, if you want. Evolve a new form of colorful, festive solution to this economy. The county may even be willing to help coordinate this.
— The model I am thinking of is the county-sponsored Sunshine Markets that weekly rove the county and does very well. They have even become a visitor attraction. This idea could be built into a grant proposal, which I and other galleries would heartily endorse.
I hope you decide to do what is pono.
Arius Hopman, Hanapepe
Coco Palms a disgrace
The Coco Palms is a disgrace to sites held sacred by Hawaiians and visitors to those nearby ancient sites.
The structure should be removed. The area should be added to the nearby state parks for all people to enjoy through interpretative programs of respect and honor.
The Department of the Interior, through the National Park Service, can provide protection of the historic sites in the Coco Palms’ properties.
The Park Service protects and preserves three similar sites on the Island of Hawai‘i. All are near Kona. They preserve, protect and promote the cultures of Hawai‘i.
The Park Service has sites on O‘ahu, Maui, and Molokai. It is time for Kaua‘i to protect and preserve their sacred and cultural history.
We can help by writing our senators, representatives and president. Most of all, talk to friends, associations and employers.
Joseph Wilson, San Diego, Calif.
