City crews cleared out more parks and sidewalks today, enforcing the new stored-property law -- the "Occupy Honolulu" site at Thomas Square among them.
Occupy Honolulu has been demonstrating and camping at the park at the corner of Beretania Street and Ward Avenue since November. Officials say they're welcome to protest, just not to store tents and other belongings.
After issuing warnings Wednesday morning to either remove belongings or have them removed, city crews returned to Thomas Square on Thursday afternoon to clean up what remained.
"All tents coolers chairs, bricks and other items are symbolic of the larger movement of people everywhere," a protestor told city crews as they arrived.
Protestors challenged the clear-out.
"I'm not sure you have proof this is the same item," one said to a city worker. "We have pictures," the worker replied.
Passersby took notice of the cleanup, many cheering and clapping from their cars at the stoplight. Some area residents and workers said they felt it was about time.
"I feel that it probably should have been done a lot sooner because it was a hazard walking to work, having to walk through this every day," said Barbara Hamocon. "I start early in the morning, so even in the dark just being afraid of tripping over some of their items, not to mention the smell."
A protestor who has been arrested twice previously at Thomas Square, Lucas Miller, entered a tent as a cleanup crew neared.
After being asked three times to leave the tent, he ran briefly into the street wearing the tent, and then through the park. He then sat before a front-end loader onsite to lift heavy belongings into the transport truck. He was arrested for obstructing governmental operations, a misdemeanor.
"He was given several commands, instructions and orders to leave the park, relinquish his tent, which he failed to do," said Sgt. Lawrence Santos of the Honolulu Police Department. "Unfortunately one person was arrested. If he simply complied there would have been no arrest."
"We were just doing a little prank, trying to keep it light in the face of the police state as you can hear them chanting," said Jamie Baldwin of Occupy Honolulu. "In a police state pranks are not allowed clearly. I don't think that free speech should have a curfew. I don't think that we should be allowed to have our voice expressed in this manner from 6 a.m. To 10 p.m., that just doesn't make sense to me."
The city says the protestors themselves are welcome to demonstrate.
"The city would like to keep the parks and streets right-of-ways open to everyone," said Westley Chun of the Facility Maintenance Department. "Everybody has their right to express themselves in this setting, as long as they don't store their property for an extended period of time"
Supporters of the movement say they won't be deterred.
"We're not going anywhere, we're in it to win, and we're not going to give up," said Nick Wooden of Occupy Honolulu. "If they take some of our tents or take our signs, there's always more cardboard, we can sleep on the sidewalk. That's what we first did when we set up the camp on november 5th."
The city says it got about 30 complaints about this location, less than some other sites previously cleared.
The city also warned homeless at Aala Park yesterday to move their belongings. This morning, crews returned and removed property left behind. Crews also issued Storage & Disposal at Young Street, Nuuanu Stream, Aala & Beretania, and in front of St. Mary Church. This brings to 60 to total number of bins in storage, including 28 Thursday. Contents of three others have been claimed and retrieved from the baseyard by two owners.
Property is available for pickup at no charge at a storage baseyard for 30 days.
