This YouTube video link is a video I secretly recorded that maintains anonymity while showing an integral part of Honolulu’s underground economy. I don’t know about all addicts, but the ones I knew, myself included, traded food stamps for cash. The gamblers were a guaranteed source of cash if you had rice or spam. At the beginning of every month it was common to see people with dollies wheeling bags of rice or cases of spam through the narrow streets of Chinatown to the gamblers “at the river.” The River is actually some sort of drainage for a stream farther up in the mountains and the River along with it’s surrounding areas, is where one can find gambling, drugs, homelessness, and prostitution. The streets by the River are called the Back streets and Hotel Street where the busses run, is the “Front Street.” Chinatown exists within these boundaries. They’ve cleaned it up a whole lot, but when you talk about the criminal element of downtown, you’re talking about the Back Street, the Front Street, and to a lesser extent, Chinatown in the middle. Now here’s a tourist brochure that won’t get distributed by the Tourism Authority!
Hawaii Street Life-a Trusted Insider Tells All 