All access to Haiku Stairs closed as trespassers persist

MOANALUA, Hawaii (KHON2) — Stay off the trails or get arrested was the word from State and City officials on Wednesday as they announced all access to the Haiku Stairs will be closed.

Officials said the closure will allow crews to safely deconstruct what is known as the Stairway to Heaven — a previous partial closure was not working out.

State officials with the Department of Land and Natural Resources shut down a portion of the Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve known as Middle Ridge in May as trespassers kept skirting enforcement in Kaneohe to get to Haiku stairs from Moanalua.

HPD said the partial closure did not stop everyone.

“During the past week as of Sunday, there was 13 people cited already for trespassing from the district four side and they entered through this side,” Honolulu Police Department District 5 acting Major Kurt Ng said.

The entire Moanalua section of the Forest Reserve as well as the Moanalua Valley Neighborhood Park will be closed so crews can safely deconstruct the stairs.

“But since people don’t want to necessarily abide by what we’re requesting and doing, then it’s going to take this level of enforcement,” Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said. “We are real serious about this, this is about life and death.”

“We are at this stage where we’ve begun to detach the modules, it’s very unsafe up there if you don’t know which modules are detached and how they’re being brought down. We plan to start bringing the modules down in about a week,” said Nakoa Companies, Inc. president Austin Nakoa. “When we begin flight operations, we have to have what’s called a sterile site. Nobody can be in the air operations area or else we’ll have to be shut down, the FAA will shut us down.”

Officials said trail enforcement has already begun and the park closure begins on Thursday, June 13. The mayor stressed that there will be no tolerance for trespassers.

“When we talk about zero tolerance, we mean it. So we’re gonna arrest people. In fact, I’m all in favor of arresting and not even giving citations. I want to be as aggressive as we possibly can on this,” Blangiardi said. “Because we don’t want anybody to die, blaming us for deconstructing the stairs because they were irresponsible.”

“We’re shut down for today, but as soon as the weather clears and the cloud cover clears, we’ll be flying,” Nakoa said.

Deconstructing the stairs is expected to take between 30 and 45 days, weather permitting.