Waikiki street performers getting arrested

[oink]

It's probably a case of the police responding to complaints from the merchants who own or rent the area stores and stalls. They may feel the street vendors are detracting from their business. They may also feel some of the vendors are unfair competition in that the regular merchants pay the full gamut of license fees and taxes along with the other expenses associated with a normal merchant such as morgage or rent, sales tax, property taxes, taxes on inventory, electric, sewer etc. If I was one of the merchants I would want them gone too, unless I thought they were actually increasing my business. It's the merchants who pay to have the area patrolled and kept clean, along with all the other services their taxes and fees support. Why should they have to now subsidize street vendors who have none of that overhead.

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.