On any given day, between 50 and 80 illegal game rooms are open for business on Oahu, the Honolulu Police Department estimates. This criminal enterprise is pervasive, and it’s not confined to any one district.

“There are illegal game rooms all over the island,” Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm said last week, on Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program.

These illegal game rooms, used for criminal activity, attract would-be robbers, and generate violent crimes. Raids at gaming rooms on Oahu routinely turn up not only gaming machines and stacks of cash, but guns, ammunition and drugs.

Now, Alm is taking measures to go after landlords who host gaming rooms, and a riled-up state Legislature could toughen criminal penalties against those who work in them. We’re cheering these crime fighters on.

Nuisance abatement could be a valuable tool to shut out gambling rooms by hitting landlords in the pocketbook, but they take extra work and commitment by the prosecutor’s office. Alm says he’s willing to take this tack.

For the first time in more than 40 years, the Honolulu prosecutor’s office has filed a nuisance abatement claim in civil court against the property owners of an alleged illegal gambling den.

On Aug. 23, prosecutors filed the complaint against the owner of 845 McCully St., Wai Tung “Ave” Kwock; Kwock’s holding company; and Tom Van Tran, a worker who was arrested at the site.

Prosecutors asked the court to permanently ban Tran from entering the building, and to order the building closed for all purposes for up to one year.

“A building owner would hate that prospect,” said Alm.

Prosecutors intend to use this “test case” to see whether civil nuisance abatement action can work to shut down illegal gambling rooms.

“If it proves to be effective, we anticipate filing more cases,” said Matthew Dvonch, special counsel to the prosecuting attorney.

That would be a welcome step for the HPD, which finds itself returning to the same sites to break up gambling, again and again.

“While it’s frustrating for our officers, the greater impact is on the neighborhoods that have these illegal operations, and that’s where the civil nuisance abatement law comes in,” HPD Maj. Phillip Johnson told the Star-Advertiser, after a Palolo property was raided three times between September 2020 and Feb. 23.

With House Bill 2197, the state Legislature could get serious about the threat these gaming rooms hold.

The bill would apply to those who work in gaming rooms, such as security, cashiers and card dealers, for whom the act of “promoting” gambling is currently a misdemeanor. By changing the requisite state of mind for promoting gambling to “recklessness” for a first-degree felony, or “criminal negligence” for a second-degree felony, some landlords could also be charged under this law.

Alm urged inclusion of negligence as a standard, saying that landlords who could not be expected to know about criminal activity at their property would not be subject to prosecution.

HB 2197, as amended, would make promoting illegal gaming a Class B or C felony. Those convicted of this felony charge would face mandatory jail time, and would not be eligible to have their charges deferred, or to plead no contest. Considering the threat these gaming operations pose to their communities, that consequence seems warranted.

Bottom line: Gambling dens throughout Honolulu are ticking time bombs, inviting criminal activity. It’s fair to hold landlords who host gambling operations responsible, and to boost criminal consequences for their workers. We should use every tool at our disposal to root them out of our neighborhoods.