Pa'ele Kiakona, a restaurant bartender from West Maui, walks at the Hawaii State Capitol in Honolulu on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, while holding a box with a petition asking Hawaii Gov. Josh Green to delay plans to reopen a portion of West Maui to tourism starting this weekend. The petition signed by more than 14,000 people comes amid a fierce and anguished debate over when travelers should return to the region, home to the historic town of Lahaina that was destroyed in the deadliest U.S.
“We are not mentally nor emotionally ready to welcome and serve our visitors. Not yet,” restaurant bartender Pa‘ele Kiakona said at a news conference before several dozen people delivered the petition. “Our grief is still fresh and our losses too profound.” Green told the Hawaii News Now interview program “Spotlight Now” shortly afterward that he was “utterly sympathetic” to people's suffering. But he said more than 8,000 people have lost their jobs due to the fire and getting people back to work was part of recovering.
A few weeks after the fire, the tourism industry began urging travelers to respectfully visit parts of Maui unaffected by the blaze, like Wailea and Makena. Then last month Green announced that West Maui — a long expanse of coastline encompassing Lahaina and hotels and condos to its north — would reopen to tourists on Oct. 8.
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