Larry Ellison’s company blocked Lanai Beach from public access in Hawaii | Hacker News Reader

Larry Ellison’s company blocked Lanai Beach from public access in Hawaii

sfgate.com

50 pointsmetadat17 comments

Visited Lanai once via ferry. Rode around with one of 2-3 taxi drivers who also runs the island's only newspaper.

Learned that Lanai has always been owned mostly by a single benefactor, the latest of whom is Larry Ellison (which this article doesn't mention). He also has (or had) a hydroponic farming startup operating there, in addition to owning the Four Seasons resort where this beach is.

Just adding this because the broader context is a small island of 3k people, many of which work for Ellison and depend on the tourism for local economy. That makes this news worse in my opinion since the locals are in such a position to be disenfranchised.

> In Hawaii, public access to beaches and shorelines is required by law, but exceptions were made for Lanai Resorts at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emergency measures resulting in unintended consequences, who would've thought?

Is anyone surprised by this by now? Oracle and Larry aren’t exactly held in high esteem, are they?

Seems like an easy solution with bolt cutters, a sawzall, and heavy daily fines for each day it was non-compliant, criminal prosecution, and civil private rights of action for loss of enjoyment by anyone of the public adversely affected.

… And a personal handwritten apology from Larry.

Go full Twitter on him. Compel Larry to personally open the beach.

#DropOracle

Probably a good idea, but I was referring more to the switch-cutting behavior Twitter makes some users do. They will suspend your account for a ToS-violating tweet, but not tell you what in the tweet broke which rule. However, they will make reinstating your account contingent on you deleting the tweet, and that in deleting the tweet you acknowledge that you have sinned and are now contrite for your sins.

The thing about this is, there is nothing that makes this necessary from a standpoint of policing offensive content. Twitter could easily remove offending tweets themselves. They refuse to because they want to psychologically break or humiliate the offenders. To the upper echelons at Twitter, it is not enough to obey Big Brother, you must also love him.

And what happens when Larry Ellison (who is a big GOP donor) sues saying that public access laws violate the 4th Amendment proscription on government seizure.

He loses in district court and appellate court.

He then appeals to the US Supreme Court, where in sympathy for the plight of rich people and their privacy, overturns all public beach access laws.

He won't do it. He's a lot of things, but ultimately he wants Lanai to be a success story, and the reputation of killing public beach access would poison the well.

Maybe with locals, but most tourists wouldn’t even know, let alone care. Furthermore, having the only beach access on the island would be a huge draw for the resort.

It would still destroy the story and legacy. Between Ellison and Zuckerberg, Hawaii is already a tenuous PR situation.

I would think the SCOTUS would respect a state's right to say "you can't own this public land as enshrined in state law". Otherwise it's not just beach access we have to worry about.

"I would think the SCOTUS would respect..."

That is a very quaint thought.

It's not that simple. In Hawaii the local rednecks enjoy driving their large lifted Toyota 4Runners ("Land Canoes") onto the beaches to fish or tailgate. Having a gate and boulders seems like an ecologically protective measure, but of course as long as their is parking and the beach is not too far away from the gate. Also provision should be made for those with disabilities.

So they could've installed bollards instead; spaced slightly wider than wheelchairs but narrower than cars. That's still a simple solution.

Have you ever tried to wheel your wheelchair in the sand?

Try searching for "sand wheelchair" and see what people who need wheelchairs use when they go to the beach. I had a bud go through a terminal illness that left him paralyzed for the last 6 months of his life. He spent most of that at the beach in a sand wheelchair. Accessibility is important.

TIL that disabled == wheelchair-bound. /s

There are plenty of people who are disabled but don't have access to a wheelchair.

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