 This is St. Tech, Hawaii. Community Matters here. Aloha! And how you doing? This is Gordo the Texar here with another exciting and thrilling episode of Hibachi Talk. Got my good old buddy. Hey, Gordo. How are you doing? Rick's the funmeister. How are you doing, bud? It's always great to see you. Yeah, we have no guests tonight because we are today. We are our own guests. There you go. Yeah, we are our own guests, our pests, depending on how you want it. So grab yourself a chair and pull up and get a libation. I'm going to sit here and we'll do a little bit of Hibachi talking. When Hibachi talks, people listen. But if you want to call in, we're going to do some new things. So we'll start getting the word out. Phone numbers 808-374-2014. So 808-374-2014, if you want to call in, if you have a question. Great. Or a comment. It could be good, yeah. Or a comment. If you want to have a guest, you could be our guest. Be kind. Yeah, you don't have to be kind. Be whatever you want. So today, we start off with one theme, but now we have two themes. The first theme is the Supreme Court ruling on sports gambling and the impacts in Hawaii. And that could take a whole lot of time on this. And then, but this whole thing on this issue of these things called Lime Bikes, Lime-Dash Esh, Lime Scooters, is really getting a lot of press. And actually last week I was talking to Huala Agriviu, who is our guest from San Francisco, and he said they're all over the place over there. There you go. That would be hard in San Francisco. I mean, well, it'd be great because the Lime Bikes, little motorized. Little electric motor. Yeah. Scoot you around everywhere. Scooter, yeah. Yeah. You need that in San Francisco to get up and down those hills. At least you get up. Well, get up. Yeah. So anyway, so there's a lot of controversy and discussion going on about the Lime Bikes stuff, and we'll talk about that as well. So it's kind of cool. But I was really intrigued, and we've talked about this as we are. So the Supreme Court ruling on sports gambling and how it impacts Hawaii. Yeah. You know, and what's the ninth island called? Las Vegas. Right? We have Las Vegas. Yeah. How many of your friends and family go to Las Vegas three or four or more times a year? I would say all my friends and family go. Or your friends and your family probably, but I don't know, your family too, I guess. Yeah. I think could be. So I'm sitting here going, okay, now we have this ruling that came down from the Supreme Court that says, related to sports gambling and all the states. But again, we're not attorneys. This is two guys sitting around talking story about what does this mean. Around the Hibachi. Yeah. Around the Hibachi talking about what this means. And I'm going to look at my notes because I got to say this correctly. The reason this happened is because of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which went into place in 1992. So it was again to protect professional and amateur sports against the gambling and everything that would go on on it. Right. And it's not just the players, if you will, the people. It's for the organizations, the systems. Everything is happening there. So if you work for a sports team, an amateur or a professional sports team, you're covered by that act. Yeah. Well, everybody's covered by that. And actually what it did, what it did, was it limited the states. So the key word here is it limited the states. Except for Nevada. Yeah. And from the ability to have sports gambling. Now I don't know how Nevada got there by, again, I'm not an attorney. But what happened on Monday is that the Supreme Court found that that act was illegal. That in fact it violated the 10th Amendment. And the 10th Amendment of the Constitution does not allow the federal government to put rules on states. So that act, just that little piece, that little protection act, said you cannot, it's illegal against the Constitution for the federal government to put rules on you that will not allow this to happen. So boom. All of a sudden. I've got to guess that that goes back really to the Constitution. That goes back to the Constitution and the 1992 protection, this professional amateur sports protection act, which was 1992. Now they found that that is actually unconstitutional. A little unconstitutional. Yeah. And it was a 7-2 vote. So it was a pretty overwhelming vote. So okay, now what does that mean for Hawaii? And what does it mean for the citizens and the residents of Hawaii? So does that now make it, it's legal to do sports gambling throughout the United States of America? You think that makes it legal? And again, I'm not an attorney. But it sounds like it makes it legal if the state makes a decision to allow it. Exactly. Now the next question comes to my mind is, if it isn't really the state of Hawaii or any other state to make that decision, or if the state doesn't make that decision, will a city or a county be able to make that decision for the city or the county, or Anahu, the city and county, to make that decision? And does it require the state? Yeah. So it's kind of a fun kind of thing and we're not attorneys so we're sitting here just having this conversation about like, okay, what does that mean? So it's still up to the states. So I can tell you right now there's going to be, I can predict that next year there will be a boatload of bills going down to the legislation, to the legislators on passing some form of gambling, sports gambling, betting kind of thing to happen. It could be a boatload or it could be a truckload. It could be a boatload. It could be, who knows. But also then speaking of boatloads and cartloads and whatever, watch the boatloads and cartloads of money that comes into the state, not for gambling, to the, from Vegas, the 9th Island, to legislators who will vote against it. So here's the, and let me preface this, I'm against lotteries. That would be contributions to our, to our legislators. Our legislators are going to get donations and you're going to, you're going to watch and if I would, I would encourage people to watch the donations that come in from Vegas that go to the legislators about them telling them to make sure they vote against any bill that would allow the legalization of sports betting in the state of Hawaii. I can, I will, I will sit here and tell you, I can guarantee the money will flow into every single candidate. It must. And it will. And only to the state of Hawaii. But it's going to go to other states that, you know, go, that have residents who go to Las Vegas. Las Vegas. Pretty regularly. Regularly. But ours, Hawaii by far, we are the number one importers of tourism to Las Vegas. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many flights Hawaiian Airlines has per day. A bunch. A bunch. Per day. I believe. In and out of Hawaii to Las Vegas. I mean, they just go constantly, constantly. And we have, I mean, how many of our residents do we know that actually moved from Hawaii to Las Vegas? And they go to Las Vegas for a couple of reasons. One is the taxes, oh yeah, it's way less. No, no state taxes. And the tax situation is there. The cost of housing is like a quarter to a third of what it is here. Their fixed income pensions go a lot longer. Yes, they do. And they're not taxed every time they turn around like they are here. No general excise tax. No GTT. No, yeah, no state tax. So none of that. So let me add the next thing. So does this mean that the Supreme Court is, no, wait, let me back up. Does this mean I could start a sports gambling website in Hawaii? Now it's ill, I understand. I cannot. Gee, are there any? Well, they're online, not here, not, you can't. So I can go home. Not legal. Not legal. I can go online and gamble. But I've been told that if I go online and gamble while I'm sitting in my home in Hawaii, that that's illegal. Wow. Then you shouldn't do that. Then I shouldn't do that. No. But if I take my computer and I go to Nevada and sit there and gamble. Well, then it's okay, isn't it? I guess it's okay. So this gets to be kind of a really confusing thing. I go like, well, wait a minute. So I'm going to throw something up for a few legislators that watch this show and say, tell you what, could you imagine if we became the Asian hub for sports gambling in the United States? So we set up the Asian hub for sports gambling in the United States. The revenues we would generate would fund our unfunded liabilities as far as- For the states. Yeah, for the states. Because the state can tax it. And they will tax it. And they will guarantee it. But that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. So that would hit our unfunded liabilities. Yeah, our unfunded pension liabilities, billion. Billions of dollars. Billions of dollars. Over time wiped off the map. Education. Could be. Education for our children. Maybe this time, instead of buying more administrators within the DOE, we could get more teachers and pay them more money and more qualified teachers. And there you go. More qualified if we can pay them and pay them more money. And pay them better. And then we'll throw another one. What about rail? Yeah. The biggest bug of blue is that out there. Transportation. Yeah, the rail. The whole rail system. Absolutely. So all of those monies. So yeah, billions of dollars that the rail is going to have to borrow. We could go away. Maybe go away. Or it had been borrowed, would go away. Because we became the sports gambling hub of the United States through one of our biggest tourist attractions, Asia. Yes. There you go. That would be that. That's one. Now, do you think the people down at the big square building would have the sense to see that? Depending on how many donations they get from the 9th Island. Right? So you got this one here and that one there? I would hope they would. I would hope. And I would hope that. I would hope. Yeah. Because the money that might come from out of state can't really buy them a vote. Now it could make them. Well, it could buy them a vote on a bill, on a piece of legislation that would allow sports gambling or betting in Hawaii. But then could it buy them the vote at the ballot box next time around? You never know. You never know. Because if you have someone running for office who says that they are pro this, they're pro sports gambling, sports betting, pro, they like this idea of the revenue stream coming in from Asia and such. And they're pro that. Do you think that we'll be monies going into candidates that were on the other side? Where would the Nevada money go? Would it go to the person that wants sports gambling or the money that does not want it? It's got to go to the legislator who wants sports gambling. But that would be. No, it won't. Oh. No. Who wants sports gambling? I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that. Yeah. Who wants sports gambling to stay in Nevada. Yes. Not bring it here. So what the key here then is that what's got to be reported to the residents of Hawaii in the paper, but well reported of how much money came to a legislator from outside the state. And that's reported. Yeah. That's got to now be really documented and why did, how much was that and where, what state did that come from? Come from. Yeah. And so I would like to see the star advertiser or someone like that or even us if I decide to sit down and do this and do a report every month of donations from Nevada to legislators who are anti-sports betting in Hawaii. Now let me add that I am totally, one of the things that Hawaii has done that I'm appreciative of, I don't like lotteries. I think lotteries take from, they give false hope, they take money from the poor who already don't have enough money and the money they could hopefully feed the kids and not buy cigarettes or drugs, but that takes that away. So Utah doesn't have a lottery and Hawaii doesn't have a lottery and I'm okay with that. And I'm okay with that. I don't need a lottery. I don't need a lottery. But how do I feel about sports gambling and sports betting? Well, it happens already. Yes. And it's liberalizing something that happens already. I read an article that said that. And it has gone back for years and years. I read an article numbered years ago or a few years ago that said that the underground sports betting industry in Hawaii could be as close to a billion dollars a year. I mean, that's a lot of money. And that's the underground piece of it. So the good news is, if something like this happened, it would eliminate or at least minimize in what I think the underground portion, the illegal portion that's going on. And even if it stayed, I think the key is it may not eliminate it, but it might reduce it. But what it will create is a new taxable revenue. Exactly. Okay. Hold that. We got to break. Hold that. New taxable revenue. So anyway, Rick's and I are having fun over this conversation. We've been having fun over this for a couple hours. But Rick's the fundmeister. Gorda the tech star here. We're talking about the Supreme Court ruling on sports gambling and impacts on Hawaii. And then we're going to pick it up in the second half. And then we're going to talk about line bikes, which is also cracking up. Anyway, we'll be back in a minute after we pay some bills. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. When I come back, I'll give the phone number again. So. Boy, that went fast. I like how he gets into it. Oh, wait. What about this one? The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike, excitement builds, game plans are made with responsibility in mind, celebrations are underway, ready for kickoff, MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your matchday experience. If you drink, never drive. Konnichiwa, Hawaii, broadcasting live every other Monday at 2 p.m. Please join us where we discuss important and useful information for the Japanese language community in Hawaii. The show will be all in Japanese. Hope you can join us every other Monday at 2 p.m. Hey, aloha. And how are you doing? Gordon, the tech star here. We're good old buddy. Rick's the fundmeister. We spent the first half of the show talking, but what did I say something wrong? No, no, no. I was going to say afternoon, but, you know, people may be hearing it. Did I say evening? Morning? No, that's what we're going to talk about. Well, you know, I get up so early this evening now. Well, it's evening in Canada. Speaking of which. Anyway, if you want to call us and ask some questions, then we're going to start sending this out now. Even in Canada. Even in Canada. It's on your mobile phone. It's free. 808-374-2014. Call us if you have any questions. We will screen the call. That's some of my friends who want to call and give me a hard time. Anyway, so we were talking about sports gambling in Hawaii and the Supreme Court ruling that now enables it up to the states to decide what they're going to do. So one of the questions that was asked is this really mean that the Supreme Court now supports gambling in all the states? And that's probably a reach, don't you think? I think it's a. I think that's probably a reach. And we'll go back to the original point was the fact that this isn't the professional and amateur sports protection act, which was deemed as unconstitutional because it violated the 10th Amendment, which is a commandeering clause that allows the government to commandeer and tell states what to do. Yeah. So there are other pieces. I mean, probably along that, but they're probably not making a judgment about sports betting. Yeah. It's really about states' rights. I think you're right. And the other thing that we see in the news often now is what is it, sanctuary states. Okay, there you go. The same sort of 10th Amendment right. Right. And I don't think that this would just be my sense. Just kind of a conversation, right? Yeah, where I'm jumping to is this is a state's right issue. It's not either a sanctuary state or even a gambling issue. Yeah. It's a state's right. It's the 10th. It's that commandeering clause that the federal government, thank goodness, for a number of reasons, has not allowed to commandeer a state and tell them what they must do. Right. But for the viewer's purposes, I'd like you all to start thinking about, well, what would that mean? And there are things that can happen to allow the federal government to tell a state what they can and cannot do. Yeah. That's a whole different issue. Yeah. And all those kinds of things. You've got all the other stuff that's going on. Yeah. But there's all those kinds of things. So anyway, that's our commentary and our thought on what's just happening here. The last comment before we jump into line bikes is follow the money. I'm telling everybody right now to follow the money. When the bills start coming out next year and you want to pay our bills with the potential of eroding money that's going to Nevada, watch where the donation money comes and then watch where the legislators vote. And I'm putting all the legislators on notice. Right. We're going to be watching. Right. We're going to be watching. The question is, how are people going to try to make it look like Hawaii generated money as opposed to money that's truly generated from an external state? Right. From an external state. Right. Because we don't get a GET back for every dollar we spend in Nevada. No. We get nothing. Yeah. We get GET on the airline flight. To and from. To and from. Or a tour package. Yeah. If that happens. But once they're there and they drop 10,000 or whatever dollars it is, that $10,000 does not get 4.667 GET added to it. Which, by the way, is 20%. We need to look at how we compound it here. Yeah. So. And I would want the money that our legislators receive in donations. Well, that they receive. Period. From donations or otherwise. That should be Hawaii state generated to the core. Well, and you watch how they funnel it through some local businesses here. Yeah. You watch. And don't let that happen. Yeah. Well, we have a lot of good things in place that will help monitor it. Okay. Let's change. Change to something that's been cracking me up since Sunday. Lime bikes. Lime bikes. And I don't know how many of you people know what lime bikes are. Easy for you to say. Or lime scooters as they're known as. So on Mother's Day, this company. And we bring up a slide. We have a picture of it. This company dropped 200 of these lime scooters around Kakaako, Waikiki, whatever. And they just showed up on the street. Yeah. Just they were just there. And there's a mobile app that you can download that will that allows you to use this bike scooter as a mode of transportation. Yeah. And now I never saw any announcements for this. I never saw the mayor out on the street hugging anybody or somebody or whatever. I don't know if you can hug anymore. But anyway, so, but I never saw that all of a sudden they just started showing up. And I saw two or three of them in Kakaako. And I didn't know at the time, I had an idea what they were because they were all agreedy who was the guest last week. He had mentioned they're all over California, San Francisco. Yeah. And so anyway, boom, wasn't like three days later. So they dropped 200 of these on the streets, Kakaako, Waikiki, and in those areas. And apparently, and what do they do? So I walk up to the, I walk, I have the lime app. I walk up to the device. I key in my information. I unlock the device. It's not locked to anything, but electronically unlock the device. And for a dollar and 15 cents a minute, I scoot around wherever I want to go because it's electric. Yeah. And I scoop whatever I want to do. Then when I get my destination, I just leave it. I close out the app and then I walk away. Yeah. And then the next person can come by and use it. Come by and pick it up and pick it up. Now, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but anyway, it's kind of like, okay, it's another form of transportation. And our transportation system is so wonderful here, except for the bus, which is excellent. But so I thought, well, these are kind of cool. Yeah. From a technical standpoint, the idea concept and everything shows up. And then I'm reading the paper. I was like, the police have confiscated or rounded up 80 of these bikes. 80 of them. 80 of them. Wow. I have no idea where they're putting them. That's like 20%. Oh, no. That's almost half. 40%. 40%. 40% of them were taken off the streets. Okay. Okay. So based on... That's a fair number. Yeah. Based on what? So I do a little bit more research. I found out that there may be two city council members who were approached about this. And we're told, this is a pretty good idea. And whoever the... I want to get the... Whoever those, perhaps, might have been. Whoever those limies are. That's slang term for English. People from England. But whoever the line persons are that put this in place. And my hat's off to you. I love courage. And I love... Yeah. I love someone who just goes, thanks for re-above here. Yeah. Let's go for it. Yeah. But apparently a couple of city council members apparently said they thought it was a good idea. I'm assuming they applied for the general excise tax license. I hope. Well, yeah. I'm hoping they did. Yeah. I'm assuming they did. Who knows? Okay. So now the question is, okay, what law are they violating? Yeah. What keeps... What allowed the police to confiscate 40%? So here's three of them that came up was a peddling ordinance. And it has nothing... We don't have a bill on the books that doesn't allow you to not peddle. A peddling ordinance. There's a peddling ordinance. And the first time I read that, I went, wait, I can't use a bike that doesn't have pedals? Or is it just a different definition of peddling? Peddling has to do with like selling t-shirts on this side. Yeah. There you go. You can't sell products and services and things like that on it. You can't peddle them. You can't peddle them. But there's no one really peddling this. Yeah. So to speak, I decide whether or not I want to walk up and use it. There's no one telling me I should. There's no one... Whatever. So again, we're not lawyers, but I just like having this conversation. Can I just leave? Where can I leave it? Well, according to the... Just leave it where it's not obstructing traffic and leave it in a safe place. They got GPS's on them so they know where they all are. They know what the battery charge level is. Oh, yeah. That was a question, too. Because if I'm going to get one, is it going to drop me somewhere? Yeah. Will it drop me somewhere? So here's the next ordinance. Okay. Well, if it's not that, it's a sidewalk nuisance ordinance. Okay. Give me a freaking break. Are you kidding me? Yeah. The homeless situation we have here with the sidewalk nuisance stuff. Have you looked at the homeless situation? Here's one that's really irritating me on Queen Emma Street. Queen Emma, right across from an elementary school. Yeah. There must be at least 10 to 20 tents that have been there a month. Yeah. Right across... No, wait a minute. We get across from an elementary school. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not a sidewalk nuisance ordinance? Yeah. Yeah. And the elementary school is... I don't know what the right word is, but that's supposed to be like a free zone for our children. You're not supposed to be able to sell liquor within 500 feet without a special permit. Yeah. I mean, but all the things... Yeah. And who knows what's going on in that little tent in cabinet? Yeah. And you can't even have... There was something... I believe it was in New Valley where people were giving out religious tracts close to an elementary, not an elementary, but an intermediate school, things like that. Yeah. How does that happen? You know, the other thing... And this is a bit of a side, but I know that the city and county just put millions of dollars into Thomas Square. Yeah. And they said, yeah, we're going to... You know, it's got an all run down and the homeless, et cetera, et cetera. Well, that was the reason to try and get rid of them. Yeah. Well, you know, on Sunday I went by it and it's kind of opened back up again and the mayor has said, you know, we've done all of this work and isn't it wonderful? The tent... They're back. It's a tent city. They're back. They're back. Okay. We got one minute, so I got a little fit. No, that's fine. No, we got one minute. So last one is abandoned property. Isn't it abandoned property or is... I go back again. Okay. What's all this stuff on the sidewalks? Give me a break. Yeah. So what is... It sounds like a great opportunity to have people, you know, move around the city much freer than... Much like the bicky bikes. Yeah. You know, here where we are, we don't have to... We don't... We can get out of our cars. We don't have a parking issue. We can... We can move around the city much better and it's got to be great for the business. I'm thinking we do bicky bike hockey. No, not... No, no. Line bike hockey. Line bike hockey. And we all... We get them together, right? But it's so good for small businesses. That's right. Okay. Yeah. Cock-a-ockle. Holy moly. Yeah. Cock-a-ockle. Whole foods is opened up. Yeah. I could... I could bicky or limey over to that. There you go. Anyway, this has been Rick's... The Fundmeister, Gordo the Tech Star. We're just... We're not even pontificating. We're just trying to figure all this stuff out on what's happening with sports betting and what's happening with the line bikes. We're going to get the... I'm going to go more into the line bikes and we're trying to get some of the... Yeah. We're going to have some people behind that come and talk to us. Come and talk to us on the show. Yeah. Anyway, this has been an absolute boatload of fun, as they always are. Call us. Watch us every Wednesday at 1 p.m. Hawaii time. And then you can pick us up on YouTube from time to time. Yeah. And call in. Yeah. And call in. 808-374-2014. And like we say at the end of your show, one, two, three. How are you doing? How are you doing?