This week the mayor signed a bill into law creating a new downtown business improvement district. Some say it's a first step of revitalization after the pandemic turned the area upside down with offices shrinking their footprint as employees worked from home.
The Chinatown area is not included in the district.
Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock is the founder and president of the Chinatown Business & Community Association. She was unsuccessful in efforts to get a time commitment for the neighborhood to be included in the district to help tackle the problems of crime.
The Conversation took a walking tour on a recent Saturday morning with her to see what the merchants and residents are up against.
On one side of the street, a marked van is selling produce from a local farm. Down the way, across from the Oʻahu market, several people with carts in tow sell produce from their gardens and play a cat-and-mouse game with Shubert-Kwock when she calls them out for blocking the sidewalk with their carts.
And at Kekaulike Market, some vendors push their borders beyond the legal lines. All part of the hustle and bustle of a Saturday market.
Shubert-Kwock represents one of many business and cultural groups that make up the patchwork of Chinatown. She is disappointed about the downtown improvement district but is still hopeful Chinatown won’t be neglected. She is pushing for more volunteer citizen patrols. It's a challenge trying to be practical but not to alienate the community that needs to pull together.
“Customers don't come, because who wants to encounter somebody in your face asking for money and look threatening, and so I don't blame them for not coming,” she said. “Our job is to clean up our Chinatown. Present as clean an image as we can, work hard at this, and then ensure the safety.”
She added that she is already seeing an increase in homelessness and drug use in Chinatown due to the new business district.
"We are part of downtown-Chinatown District 6," she said. "We are one unit, one community. So by splitting us up, it's like splitting up a Siamese twins and only solving half the problem, the other half is left. So when downtown gets cleaned up by the higher power security and bigger budget to spend for cleaning and all of that, they're pushing all the unwanted over outside, and we're not ready."
Shubert-Kwock told HPR that once Chinatown can get help to rid itself of drugs throughout the community, everything should fall into place.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 22, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
