The mayor yesterday challenged the legality of a Na Pali Coast tour scheduled to depart Monday from the Hanalei River Boatyard “I have directed my staff to take swift and decisive action to address any violation relative to illegal boating
The mayor yesterday challenged the legality of a Na Pali Coast tour scheduled to depart Monday from the Hanalei River Boatyard
“I have directed my staff to take swift and decisive action to address any violation relative to illegal boating activity,” Mayor Bryan Baptiste said in a statement. “We will pursue all legally permissible options in assuring that appropriate permits are properly complied with.”
The operator said she would cancel the tour unless the situation could be resolved over the weekend.
“We will not be a pirate,” said Mary Kagawa Garcia, co-owner of Lady Ann Cruises, doing business as Na Pali Explorer. “We’ve always run our company with integrity. Until the legal thing is settled, I’m going to be in a standby position.”
County officials delivered a letter to Michael Sheehan, owner of the boatyard, informing him of the mayor’s position.
“It’s election year,” Sheehan said. “He couldn’t do anything else.”
The arrival of the tour boat at Sheehan’s boatyard last week quickly heated emotions in a community still healing from boating disputes that whittled a glut of tour boats to only three operators in 1998.
Those operators won a federal court battle that allowed them to continue to work from the bay. Sheehan has said the 2003 ruling, which threw out a ban on commercial boats in the bay, clears the way for Na Pali Explorer.
“We will endeavor to get a clear directive from the federal court,” he said. “It’s going to be very expensive for taxpayers on Kaua‘i.”
Carl Imparato, president of the Hanalei-Ha‘ena Community Association, who sent the mayor a letter asking for intervention, applauded Baptiste’s decision.
“We’ll still be out there Monday morning to verify what’s going on,” he said.
The mayor’s statement clarified county and state jurisdiction at the boatyard, but did not specify the rules and regulations that apply to the boatyard and tour operator.
Regulation of land-based activities mauka of the tree line falls on the county, the statement said, while the state must monitor activities from the shoreline out to sea three miles.
“I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not want to see the boating issue tear apart the North Shore community as it has done in the past,” the mayor said in the statement. “I will not stand by idly and let this happen. No economic gain is worth destroying the community.”
• Charlotte Woolard, business writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or cwoolard@kauaipubco.com.
