Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar

The state Public Utilities Commission ruled yesterday that Young Brothers barge company "has the legal right" to go out of business.

The commission said "the issue … is not whether the reasons for Young Brothers’ decision to terminate service (on Dec. 31, 1979) are reasonable or not."

But the commission added that the date the service is to end "is subject to such reasonable extensions that the public interest may require."

The company — Hawaii’s only interisland freight system — has been regularly serving about 2,500 Isle businesses and manufacturers.

Those clients "buy" about 300,000 shipments per year.

Each month, from Honolulu, there are five Young Brothers runs to the Big Island, three to Kahului, Maui; two to Molokai and two to Kauai — a total of 624 runs a year.

In almost all cases, the barges return empty from the Neighbor Island ports.

In commenting on the PUC’s action, Kyran O’Dwyer, Young Brothers vice president, said today:

"The commission’s action highlights the need for legislative actions during the 1979 session to resolve the problems cited by Young Brothers in its termination notice.

"There are several committees at work on these issues. One is under the chairmanship of (First Hawaiian bank economist) Thomas Hitch, and another, the State Senate Committee on Transportation, is chaired by Sen. Dennis O’Connor." …

O’Dwyer said Young Brothers is interested in substantial deregulation and, among other things, would like to see studies of "the elimination of discriminatory taxes on interisland transportation and the advantages and disadvantages of the transocean tariff structure and its impact on Interisland transportation."

Young Brothers, he said, believes that if answers can be found to some of the problems being studied, Hawaii can continue to have a "modern, efficient, financially stable interisland water transportation system financed and operated by privately owned carriers."