PAHOA BUSINESSES APPLAUD SECURITY CAMERAS

PAHOA, Hawaii ; South of Hilo, in the center of business legal and
illegal in lower Puna, Santa isn't the only one watching to see who's
been naughty and who's been nice.

A series of federally funded security cameras just went up in the
heart of Pahoa, protecting legitimate businesses and driving drug
dealers, boozers and brawlers out of the area.

Immediate credit goes to the Pahoa Weed and Seed program, a federal
designation for efforts to weed out bad elements and seed in business
and social development. Similar programs are under way in Chinatown
and Ewa on Oahu.

Pahoa didn't get the $175,000 that sometimes comes with the
designation, but it did get nearly $70,000 in a federal law
enforcement Burns grant.

The money paid for setting up a tiny Weed and Seed office, several
months' salary for coordinator Lon Brown and "at least eight"
security cameras. Brown won't say exactly how many, for fear of
giving drug dealers too much information, but a quick scan suggests
the true count is about double that.

The cameras are just the latest change around Pahoa, the center of an
area once famous for drugs, crime and poverty.

Drug dealing was so centralized that one dealer stood on the center
line of the only street through town, stopping cars to sell "ice,"
Brown said.

On Dec. 9, police arrested him and charged him with offenses related
to crystal methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, said
Puna District police Capt. Steven Guillermo. The spot where he stood
is now covered by several cameras.

Twenty feet away, facing the street, is a low wall where loiterers
used to sit and drink beer. Prostitutes used to hang out under
tarpaulins right behind the wall.

The spot is now covered by the cameras. The undesirables are gone.
Some might try to go to the back side of the Akebono Theater, but
that too is covered by cameras.

Madie Green, who runs Pahoa Puna Buy & Sell, is "ecstatic" about the
cameras. Teenagers used to skip school, sit on the rock wall and get
into fights for no apparent reason, she said. Now they're gone.

Capt. Guillermo says the law allows people found drinking in the area
to be banned for a year. "I can see the difference in the town
already," he said.

Some people ask if the cameras just send troublemakers to another
area. Brown responds that criminals, like most people, like having a
stable base of operations. Keeping them on the move keeps them
unstable, and they make mistakes that lead to their downfall.

The cameras operate like the ones in a bank, meaning they aren't
watched all the time, but if something happens, they can be played
back for evidence.

The images they capture go into a Web site not open to the public but
available to law enforcement far afield, such as the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Honolulu.

The Weed and Seed geographic area actually extends upland to Kaohe
homesteads, an area of 30- and 40-acre lots where poachers with
night-vision goggles and camouflage clothing hike through private
property at night, shooting at pigs at 3 a.m. and scaring residents.

Kaohe has no paved roads, no electric power lines, no telephone
lines. But it now has a Community and Farm Watch, which notes
vehicles driving through the area, even at 3 a.m. Police put out the
word, "If you get caught (hunting illegally) up there, we're going to
take your weapons," Brown said.

Hawaiian Beaches and neighboring Hawaiian Shores, on the makai side
of Pahoa, have all of the touches of civilization that Kaohe doesn't,
like pavement and power.

But it also had neglect and decay, until Fred Blas moved in. After
spending his teenage years on Oahu, Blas moved to the mainland, owned
seven tire stores during 40 years, then retired to Hawaiian Shores
with too much energy to sit still.

Now 58, he cleaned up a county park overgrown with weeds, got friends
to paint park buildings, moved to another vacant county property
covered with weeds and beer bottles, cleaned that up, and created a
second park.

"This place used to be a heavy, heavy drug place," he said. Now he
tells kids on the verge of trouble, "Look, I don't want you to go to
jail now."

A one-man Weed and Seed program, Blas seeds parks, a sheltered bus
stop for kids and anti-drug signs everywhere.

Back in the village, Thai, Italian, Mexican and Filipino restaurants,
as well as the Boogie Woogie Pizza parlor, are creating a new
reputation for Pahoa. "It's a great place to go to eat," said Deputy
Prosecutor Mitch Roth, who obtained grants for the Weed and Seed
program. Roth also sees a reputation for arts and crafts stores building.

And people who park and walk to the stores and restaurants can do so
with confidence, because those cameras are watching their cars.