The city Liquor Commission has declared war on “hostess” bars that offer customers sex for money.

The commission has closed four Oahu bars recently because of sexual misconduct. Another was scheduled for a hearing today and a sixth establishment is facing multiple charges.

“Sex was more the object than liquor in some places,” said Eugene Carson, liquor law administrator. “Some are nothing more than houses of prostitution.”

Bar owners now face a special task force of undercover investigators who are not recognizable the minute they set foot on the premises.

And the investigators are backed by commission members who take the violations so seriously that they are considering denying any future request for a hostess-style establishment.

Carson said that of the 600 dispenser licenses held by bars and restaurants on Oahu, between 150 and 200 are establishments which feature hostesses.

Bar hostesses are an attraction widely prohibited by liquor laws in many other states.

In Hawaii, it was the generous platters of pupus as well as genial women willing to share a booth that made hostess bars a popular import after World War II. It has been an enterprise attracting women who have arrived in successive waves of immigrants.

“Recent immigrants appear to have more liberal attitudes about the law,” Carson said.

Commission Chairman Mel Chow said many of the hostess bar owners may need more of an education about the laws here.

“They aren’t going to change if we fine them a fine. A fine won’t hurt them,” said Chow. “They think of it as something like paying a bribe, anyway.

“Where they come from, that’s the way they do business. When they come here, they still run it their way. They don’t learn the laws here.”

Chow said the crackdown evolved from public hearings at which apartment residents began to appear in numbers to oppose additional bars and the unsavory side effects in their congested neighborhoods.

“It makes a big difference that most of the commissioners are not customers of those places,” said Chow of the commission’s stern members.