Friday, May 27, 2022
Honolulu has a "smash-and-grab" burglary problem, but there is a solution
by Larry Geller
Honolulu has experienced a wave of "smash-and-grab" burglaries that is costing businesses expensive repair charges -- and which actually often net very little for the burglars. Basically, the doors or windows of a store or restaurant are smashed in middle of the night with rocks or by crashing a vehicle (usually stolen) into the storefront, then the thieves make off with cash registers or items of value.
A Star-Advertiser story (paywalled) reports that there have been 577 of these so far this year, as compared with 603 last year. That's a great increase over what was already a disturbingly large number of robberies.
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| (pic: Star-Advertiser Craig Kojima) |
Footage from a surveillance video camera at the cafe showed three men entering the restaurant. Based on the footage, the burglary lasted about 1 minute and 15 seconds.
They just smashed the door, grabbed whatever they could get and left, said assistant manager Asia Gosnell. “If anything, I think the glass for the door is going to be more expensive than what they took.”
The glass door at Sophie’s Gourmet Hawaiian Pizzeria located next to the cafe also was shattered. Nothing was taken from the pizzeria.
Bandits also shattered the glass doors at Daiichi Ramen and BB.Q Chicken at Kuono Marketplace, a neighborhood shopping center that opened in Kahala in 2021.
Paul Ke, owner of Daiichi Ramen, said thieves took a cash register from his restaurant at about 2:15 a.m.
Ke said he wants the marketplace property management to hire additional security guards to patrol the grounds, especially after midnight.
The latest string of burglaries occurred following a series of smash-and-grab burglaries at other eateries at shopping centers and strip malls around Oahu in recent weeks and months.
If a burglary can be carried out in as little as a minute and 15 seconds, hiring more security guards may not be the solution -- thieves will learn to create a diversion and then hit the stores.
What may work would be to adopt practices used elsewhere to protect stores when they are closed -- rolling steel drop gates. I remember walking down the street from my home near Tokyo to the train station in the early morning -- every store was protected by a rolling steel drop gate.
The Web is full of examples.
Here's a "before" picture:
The fix:
And here's a pic of a protected neighborhood, Park Slope in New York: (pic credit: flickr: Dan Nguyen, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The steel gates also block views of what's inside, perhaps reducing temptation, and may provide some protection against storms or hurricanes.
Just a suggestion, FWIW.
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Civil Beat: Chad Blair on Why Micronesian Students Struggle In Hawaii
by Larry Geller
A confession: I discontinued my graduate studies in part because of the apparent requirement that I would be expected to produce scholarly papers -- that I felt no one outside of academia would ever read. And few people in academia either, because they were busy writing and publishing their own papers--that no one outside of academia would read.
I wanted to make a difference, and while I knew (and still believe) that research and publication are critically important activities, they were just not for me. I wanted to find a different path.
Ok, condemn me for this view. It was heartfelt at the time, right or wrong.
These days I frequently look up and read technical papers. End of confession.
Chad Blair has focused attention on one forthcoming paper that, thanks to his publicity, may (and should) be widely read.
Chad Blair: Why Micronesian Students Struggle In Hawaii.
The paper is:
“Racism and Discrimination against Micronesian Students in Hawaii,” it was produced by the Hawaii Scholars for Education and Social Justice.
The new report is focused on concerns over the “educational attainment, experiences, and problems” encountered by students from Micronesia in the public school system of Hawaii, especially at the K-12 level.
I hope Chad will post a link to the article when it is finally published (or available otherwise).
Meanwhile, please read his article if you care about equity in education in Hawaii.
Mind-blowing example of inflation–a $2.25 multi-course Chinese lunch in New York City in 1965
by Larry Geller
I was listening to the Shep-A-Day podcast, which posts archived Jean Shepherd radio shows that originally aired on radio station WOR in New York City. It was a late-night show, and as a kid I would hide my transistor radio under my pillow and listen under the covers almost every night, as I fell asleep.
Below is a snip from Shep’s May 14, 1965 program. It’s a transcript of a commercial he read at the very end of the program.
Can you believe, a 10-course Chinese lunch for $2.25? Even if this offer is designed to be a loss-leader to bring in new customers, it boggles the mind that a restaurant could be this cheap.
The restaurant (on 21st St. in Manhattan) no longer exists, according to a Google search. I’d love to have been able to discover what the same meal costs there today.
For those who don’t know Jean Shepherd, he was a prolific entertainer, radio personality, author and even movie producer. Here’s his Wikipedia page.
His radio program was unusual – he talked continuously, played the kazoo and Jews Harp often. Every night he was on, for years and years, continuous talk. No one has matched his ability to do this. I recommend the podcast if you might be an old fan, or for those wanting to experience his unusual entertainment style. Here’s the RSS feed, or get it wherever you get your podcasts:
Shep-A-Day Fatheads Podcast: http://tomwsmf.com/podcasts/shepaday.rss
And here’s the commercial transcript:
"If you're going to make the restaurant scene over the weekend, I would highly like to recommend a visit to Happiness. It's an excellent restaurant. And I'm sorry that I've received all kinds of mail from people who missed our little party there before I went off to Australia, but Happiness is between 93rd and 94th Streets on Broadway.
And it is a fine Chinese restaurant and it really is a different kind. They serve the best dishes from Sichuan, Shanghai, Peking and Canton. It's really gourmet food and the prices are insanely moderate. You can get a fabulous 10 course dinner for just $2 and a quarter.
And it's unique. Not only that, you have this 10 course dinner and then you can eat as much as you want of it. That's two bucks and a quarter. It's a fantastic restaurant. It's served every day from 5:30 to 9:30pm and is an extremely pleasant restaurant. They serve a Hong Kong Tea House luncheon every day from noon to 4:30, hors d'oeuvres and Chinese pastries and so on.
At the lunch you just wouldn't believe how cheap that is. Nevertheless, it's Happiness and they're open Sunday. It's a great place to take the kids too. They've got a bar. It's Happiness between 93rd and 94th on Broadway."
