Commercial activity at city parks from ethnic festivals at McCoy Pavilion to tai chi classes at a neighborhood gym became illegal due to the unintended consequences of a law that took effect July 1.

The city is drafting rules on what types of commercial activity will or will not be allowed — a process prompted by a new ordinance that was designed to ban business activity at Kailua Beach Park and nearby Kalama Beach Park on weekends. The city — prompted by a new ordinance that was designed to ban business activity at Kailua Beach Park and nearby Kalama Beach Park on weekends — is drafting rules on what types of commercial activity will or will not be allowed.

City attorneys concluded that wording in Bill 5, which the City Council introduced in 2011 and approved earlier this year, means commercial activity without permits at all Oahu parks under city jurisdiction are barred at all times, unless there are specific rules related to a particular activity in a specified area.

Parks Director Gary Cabato said, "We are primarily educating folks on the use of our parks for commercial activities citing the definition under Bill 5. … Most of the time that our staff interact with the organizers, they voluntarily move."

The first step toward establishing the rules covering the city’s roughly 290 parks will be a series of public hearings that the city Department of Parks and Recreation will hold throughout across Oahu beginning today.

Cabato said that based on the public comments received, his department will form a preliminary set of rules that will then need to go through the state’s environmental assessment process. There would be at least two more series of public meetings required after that, he said.

The earliest the rules can be put in place is likely the end of the year, about the time the terms of Mayor Peter Carlisle, and Cabato himself, are scheduled to end, Cabato said.

Cabato said there are already established rules for long-standing commercial activity for which the city itself actually issues contracts such as beachboy concessions in Waikiki, snorkel rentals at Hanauma Bay and food concessions at Ala Moana and elsewhere.

Also OK are vendors who obtain city permits to teach swimming, snorkeling or body­boarding. All those activities have gone through the full environmental impact statement process and have permits, Cabato said.

What’s unclear is whether the no-commercial activity ban impacts concession contracts issued by the Department of Enterprise Services to lunchwagons that operate at city parks but do not have permits, he said. "They could easily fall into the definition of Bill 5," he said.

While all of the parks would be covered under a single environmental assessment, Cabato said, he expects different rules to govern individual parks based on community preference.

"It’s going to be on a park-by-park basis," he said. "The community will be saying, ‘Well, I don’t want that activity at my park,’ or ‘I want this at my park.’"

For instance, Cabato said, he anticipates the North Shore and Leeward Coast communities will support allowing temporary permits for commercial activities run by the largely nonprofit surf contests that raise money through sales of food, beverages and merchandise. People in Waimanalo are expected to support a permit for a popular annual country fair there, he said.

On the other end, Cabato told City Council members that he likely won’t seek to establish permitting of commercial activity at Kailua Beach Park where there is strong public sentiment against it. Bill 11, which was passed by the City Council and then withstood a mayoral veto, bans all commercial activity at Kailua Beach Park unless permitted.

A number of residents there complained that kayak rental companies and tour bus companies ruined what was once a tranquil neighborhood beach park.

In some parks, common sense and logic will dictate what is allowed.

"Some parks won’t have any activity because the infrastructure won’t support it," Cabato said. "Like the miniparks."

Cabato acknowledged that he’s allowed some commercial activity to take place in spite of the law. For instance, ethnic festivals at Ala Moana’s McCoy Pavilion and at Kapiolani Park have been allowed to set up vendors.

The festivals themselves are not an issue so long as they obtained permits and do not charge a fee. But the concessions at the festivals technically should not been allowed under Bill 5.

They were given exceptions because the festival organizations booked their events at least a year in advance and because of the large financial impact that killing off commercial activity would have on the groups.