HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The Honolulu Police Department says a new operation is not only shutting down illegal game rooms, it’s keeping them closed for good.
“Every time one of these game rooms comes into a neighborhood, it brings along with them guns and violence and drugs and other issues,” said Honolulu City councilmember Tyler Dos Santos-Tam.
For years, HPD has been raiding illegal game rooms on Oahu, but dozens still persist, partly because of some landlords are willing to accept their huge rent payments.
“The rule of thumb generally was when you shut one down, one, maybe even two open up somewhere else,” said retired HPD deputy chief John McCarthy.
“There’s a game room on School Street up until a few years ago that was paying $14,000 a month to their landlord, simply to rent this tiny space,” said Dos Santos-Tam.
“That kind of money makes it really lucrative for the landlord,” he added.
But the city is now increasing the risk for those landlords, and it’s paying off.
HPD said two years after it launched “Operation Follow Through” in Kalihi — partnering with several other agencies, including prosecutors, the city Department of Planning and Permitting, and federal Homeland Security — more landlords are being hit with property violations.
“If we start to make things hurt for the landlords who have, up until this point, been getting thousands of dollars under the table, if we start to make it hurt for them, we can finally get them to say, well, it’s not worth it,” said Dos Santos-Tam, who represents the Kalihi area.
HPD said nine game rooms were shut down in Kalihi in 2023. That number jumped to 16 last year. And so far this year, 37 illegal game rooms have been shuttered.
HPD also says none of those game rooms have reopened.
“Operation Follow Through” has been bolstered by new city and state laws passed this year, further increasing penalties on landlords.
It comes as prosecutors haven’t had to take many cases to court.
“In order for a gambler to fight a property seizure, he’s gotta come forward and admit pretty much that they were running a gambling operation at that property,” said McCarthy. “You don’t normally see that very often. They normally walk away from the property, regardless of what it is.”
The program is just in the Kalihi area right now, but HPD said it is working to expand the program island-wide.
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