Aloha,
The first time I was told not to dance in Maui was in Lahaina. Sometime in 2001 I was at the Wharf Center, near the area that is now Da Kitchen. There was a band playing music on the stage in front of the elevator. There were chairs set up in the open area, but there was only a handful of people in the large open space. I started grooving around and someone came up to me and said there was no dancing. I was shocked to hear of such a rule. A little while latter a women started to move her body and she was also told to stay still.
A few years ago I saw a very peculiar event at Cafe' Marc Aurel. They had a DJ playing music and about 8 people were dancing in an open area. On the other side of the bar there were about 15 people talking and drinking. Unfortunately the drinking people were in the area the LC had on record as a dance floor. The wait staff took great effort to get all the dancing people to move to the dancing area and the drinking people move to the consumption area. This inconvenience interrupted many conversations and a few of the dancers were so flabbergasted by the experience they left the bar.
My most note-able experience with the dance regulations was in Kihei. In 2004 my band played weekly shows at a small bar called Neptune's. The LC enforcers frequently would come by and remind Neptune's about the dancing rules. The bouncers were so worried about the LC that I actually saw a bouncer put a guy in a headlock and throw him out after the bouncer told him three times to stop dancing.
One day I told Ramoda Anand about the dancing rules and he decided to do more research into the matter. We sent out emails to the Liquor Commission and got no response. During one of our shows the bouncer came up to me and said the LC enforcers were outside and I had to stop dancing. Getting no answer from the emails I decided to go outside and ask the enforcer how they defined dancing. They never answered my question and said that I was harassing them. After a month of no answer to the question "what is dancing?" Ramoda wrote to the LC adjudication board. They told the Liquor Commission to put dancing on the agenda and talk with us. During the meeting Ramoda and I gave our opinion and the Liquor Commission said very little. Ramoda was sent a letter that said the LC could not define dancing, but according to Webster's dictionary dancing was in part, "to move the body, especially the feet, in rhythm, ordinarily to music." Over the past three years I have been to three Liquor Commission meetings about dancing and two court appearance.
I feel that all people have the right to move their body moderately.
HB2818 was introduced by BERTRAM, CARROLL, HANOHANO, Thielen. The bill passed it first committee Economic Revitalization, Business & Military Affairs Committee last session, but was held up in the Consumer Protection & Commerce and Judiciary Committee. Last term it passed the first committee on and was held up in the committee. We are going to be lobbying officials in the next term to gain support for the bill . Our message on Maui, Dance 'Cause We Are FREE is being heard and we are going to carrie our voice inter-island to promote dancing through out Hawaii.
Me ka aloha pumehana,
Anthony Simmons