STORYLINE

The History of the Regulators Part III

tools.jpg

I’ve been highlighting the Regulators and it’s most important members this week. There have been a number of groups that shaped Lahaina after the fracture, but there’s no doubt that the Regulators have had a bigger impact than most. I’ve discussed the transportation obsessed Esther Hele, and the alarming queen of food safety Betsy KauKau. Today, I’ll cover the last and most well received co-founder of the group, Dan Kukulu, or as he’s better known, Dan The Building Man.

Little to nothing is known about Dan’s upbringing and early years. The first mention of Dan in any of the old documents is when he was first appointed as a building inspectors in Lahaina. Dan took to his post just a year before the municipal veil building was constructed. He served the county of Maui for a while, but eventually left to work for Veilcorp.

Dan excelled in his new role, and was soon the head of maintenance at the facility. Fate had different plans for Dan however, and just a few months into his new job the fracture happened. To the astonishment of the surrounding Kānaka, Dan walked away from the building seemingly unharmed days later, and began his work immediately.

Although people were falling victim to biohazards and toxic fumes all around him Dan seemed fine. His survival coupled with his quiet demeanor, and aversion to physical contact made fellow survivors nervous at first. Their worries were soon quashed when Dan began to inspect buildings in the area and started repairs.

It was not unusual in those first few years after the collapse to wake up and find new handrails, or a repaired access ramp outside of your building. He never asked for help, but would accept it silently and graciously. When people would inquire, the normally quiet Dan would respond that the fracture wouldn’t have happened if the proper codes were followed. He couldn’t undo the accident, but he could ensure that everyone had a safe and accessible place to live now. He saw it as his job to make sure that the old construction safeguards were upheld, so the future could be rebuilt to commonly accepted standards.

Dan’s tireless work and aloofness had a big impact on the Kānaka in particular. They began to whisper that Dan wasn’t human but a spirit of the land. They claimed that he never slept and could travel great distances through the air at night. They made lists of things such as: clearly marked exits, termite barriers, clear roof drains, and properly installed cladding systems that pleased The Building Man. Dan loved detailed maintenance logs above all else, and presenting a set to him was a sure way to keep him working in your village.

Dan hated inaccurate blueprints and rooms without proper egress above all else. The Kānaka devised complex ceremonies to ensure that Dan would grant them building permits. These ceremonies could last for days and involve multiple villages. The rituals surrounding grandfathering a surviving structure were especially elaborate.

It wasn’t long before The Building Man started attracting followers, but unlike his fellow Regulators he never seemed interested in leading a large group. If he felt that his work crew had become too large to be efficient, he would send them ahead to scout and start repairs in new areas. Many of the remaining structures in Lahaina are standing because of Dan’s work. It’s hard to estimate how many people he helped that first year, but they numbered in the hundreds at least.

However helpful some found Dan, he was not without his critics. The Building Man considered every structure on the island his domain. He did not wait for permission to inspect your dwelling. It was his job. He would make what repairs and alterations he deemed necessary without regard for the people inside. It was not unusual to be awoken in the night from the sound of Dan altering the size of your doorway to meet code or other adjustments. Worse still, if he found your structure uninhabitable he would demolish it without regard for the occupants inside. If he was met with resistance Dan could be a terrible opponent indeed.

It was this disregard for the wishes of a structure’s occupants, and heedless renovation that eventually drove Dan from Lahaina. He attempted to install emergency lighting with a small crew of followers inside a building that turned out to be a Tapper stronghold. A fight between the groups soon broke out. According to the stories, the battle was so large that almost all of Front street was covered in Tapper fog. For hours the sounds of screams and nailguns mixed with taps and explosions. The battle moved North into the old preserve and Dan was never seen in Lahaina again.

There are rumors that Dan survived his battle with the Tappers and simply relocated to Kapalua to work in peace around the golf course. The Kānaka claim that he was so troubled by the Tapper’s aggression that he traveled to another island to continue his work. Whatever the truth, there is no doubt that Lahaina is a better place because of Dan’s work.

STORYLINE

The History of the Regulators Part II

food2.jpg

There have been a number of groups and individuals who have impacted the day-to-day lives of survivors on the island. Few have had as big of an impact as the regulators, however. The collection of dedicated civil servants and like-minded individuals, strive to implement and enforce the rules and regulations that existed before the collapse of civilization. Many, including the Kānaka, see them as the last vestige of an old failed system. Still, others admire their perseverance.

Earlier this week we covered the group’s founder, Esther Hele, a former DMV worker striving to keep the roads safe and the drivers licensed. Today, we’ll cover the group’s most notorious member, Betsy Kaukau. The name alone is enough to make even the bravest Kānaka warrior nervous. Even amongst members of the Regulators, Betsy is considered misguided. Some say that her story is more fiction than fact and serves as a cautionary tale. Others disagree. Either way, her story is an important piece of island history.

Betsy was not born to love her job like many of the Regulators. She was led down the health inspector path through tragedy. Until her 12th year, the young lady was remarkable only in her unremarkability. She wasn’t interested in anything in particular, excelled in no sport or extracurricular activity. She wasn’t a gifted orator or artist and was an average student. Everything about Betsy was standard with no deviation, until that fateful day at her father’s company picnic.

The media at first didn’t fully appreciate how bad the tainted food was. By the end of the week, they would be calling it the worst case of food poisoning ever recorded. A CDC investigation found that a perfect storm of tainted lettuce, undercooked chicken, and spoiled cole slaw was responsible. There was a cobb salad that combined listeria, trichinosis, salmonella, and e-coli in one dish! There were a number of recalls and legal suits filed but it was too late for the 34 men, women, and children lost that day. It was too late for Betsy’s family.

The girl was sent to live with relatives in Lahaina where she began to finally show an interest in something, microbiology, and food safety. Betsy became obsessed with protecting others from the same fate as her family. As a teenager, she was banned from several local restaurants for barging into the kitchen and demanding to check food temperatures or test sanitizing solutions with her container of test strips. Nobody was surprised when she eventually became a health inspector.

She attacked unsafe food handling practices with a vengeance that unnerved her co-workers and led to a number of official complaints. Betsy was particularly hard on the businesses that had banned her as a teenager. She became convinced that they were lying about their food handling practices and hiding something. When she publicly accused the owner of a popular beach bar of serving poisonous pina coladas, it was the transgression that her superiors had been waiting for. A disciplinary hearing was scheduled for the following Tuesday, September 27th, the same day that the veils fractured. Nobody knows what happened at that hearing or how Betsy survived. What is clear, is that the catastrophe had a profound effect on the already obsessed woman.

For a while, the islanders embraced her, and she was helpful. She taught safe food preservation and canning procedures. She explained to all who would listen that public health was more important than ever, and was the first to discover that the island’s white rats carried prions and shouldn’t be eaten. There can be no argument that for a time Betsy saved many lives, but as the Regulators grew in power so did her instability.

She began to preach about the pureness of food. Claiming that all food was flawless until tainted by mishandling and lies about its preparation. She believed that lies could taint people and spill over into their meals just as easily as bacteria, and it was her job to protect the public from both.

This is where the stories began to conflict and get a bit murky. There are claims that she believed that the entire summer harvest in a Thriver village had been tainted and had every plant dug up and destroyed. Still, others say that she thought the people had been tainted so she poisoned their food to stop the spread of the infection. Either way, many lives were lost and it was just the beginning.

The stories of her exploits for the next year range greatly from the bizarre and misguided to the horrific. What is certain, is that Betsy took complete control of the food and its distribution in Lahaina for a long time. She began to target specific people she felt did not take safe food handling seriously. They found no mercy at the bottom of her sanitizer vats, and no pity from her long probe thermometers. Finally, though, they had enough.

With her compatriot Esther run-off after a disagreement with the Kānaka chief Ikaika, Betsy didn’t have the manpower to hold off those who wanted her gone. She supposedly escaped her attackers and fled East to join up with Esther, but accounts of the assault vary. Some say she made it and plans on coming back with a whole new arsenal of twisted kitchen equipment and shutdown notices. Some say she is finally at peace somewhere in the rubble of her old headquarters. Whatever the truth, everyone who has ever accidentally dropped food on the floor can breathe easier since she’s been gone.

STORYLINE

The History of the Regulators Part I

car.jpg

There have been a number of groups and individuals who have helped make the island livable since the fracture. From science fair kids joining forces with a dance troupe, to mysterious delivery men trying to keep Front street safe, many have dedicated their lives to making things better. Then there are those that are harder to quantify.

The Regulators are one such group. A collection of dedicated civil servants and like-minded individuals, the Regulators strive to implement and enforce the rules and regulations that existed before civilizations collapse. Most on the island views this as a preposterous endeavor at best. The Kānaka in particular, have a very dim view on rebuilding things in the image of what existed before. However, there are those that admire the tenacity of the Regulators and their resolve.
This is the first in a series explaining how the group got its start, and detailing their three most important members.

By all accounts Esther Hele was a miserable child. Born the daughter of a well-known Pali-ites instructor at the world famous Kokua Wellness Center and Spa here in Lahaina, Esther’s troubles began almost immediately. The carefree and self-regulated parenting style in her home did not fit Esther’s personality. Thriving on order and rules, she would routinely put her toys in long lines in order to listen to their concerns and give them daily direction.

This behavior spilled over into preschool, where young Esther took great delight in reporting any and all infractions, (especially line cutting), to the teachers. Elementary school was no better. She was picked last, if ever, for every game at recess. The other children made fun of her need for order and love of authority. Things finally came to a head when Esther presented a 10-page report on the short-counting issue running rampant during hide-N-seek to the Principal.

It troubled her greatly that others were routinely allowed to disregard the rules without consequence. It seemed unfair to her that many of the adults appeared not to care, or were unwilling to enforce mutually understood standards of conduct. The lunch line was haphazard and inefficient at best. Esther declared that she would be better equipped to run things than her classmates or teachers. It was her proposed punishments for them that drew the most concern. After some discussion with school officials, and a licensed counselor, it was agreed that Esther should attend a more structured private school on the mainland.

The new school was exactly what she needed. While she still had trouble relating to her peers, Esther thrived under the strict new rules. She soon became a favorite of the staff and was allowed many special privileges. She reorganized the stanchions in the library, reducing the average check-out time by almost a minute. She added 30 pages to the school’s code of conduct packet to remove any ambiguities. Instances of students sneaking off campus dropped by a third under Esther’s diligent night watches. Not only did Esther like the strict rules, but she began to love the power as well.

Eventually she graduated and needed to find work. College seemed too chaotic for Esther and her teachers suggested a summer job while she worked on her plans for the future. On paper the DMV seemed liked the perfect fit for her, and as Esther would tell you, paper never lies. She did well at private school, but she was born to work at the DMV.

The lines were magnificent. If someone gave you trouble you could put them in another line, and watch the hope drain out of their eyes, by closing it minutes later. While the rules and organization inside seemed capricious or punitive to some, they made perfect sense to Esther. Still, she missed her family and longed to mold her hometown into a more efficient place to live. She was eventually granted a transfer.

Esther had just began to settle in at her new office. She wasn’t even supposed to start for another week, but she wanted to time the lines and look for any possible rule breaking from her co-workers before she started her next report. When the island started shaking she quickly led them to the designated emergency shelter and had the forethought to bring the water tanks from the lobby. Say what you will about her personality, but all the survivors inside that DMV office that day owe her their lives.

They stayed in the shelter for what seemed like forever. Finally, the water situation started to become dire. Esther knew she had to get out and survey the area, but she was not quite ready for what she saw. Everything was in ruins. She assumed there must be other survivors somewhere but she didn’t see any. Though she didn’t know what the problem was exactly, it was a safe bet that nobody would be veiling in with help anytime soon. It was clear what she had to do.

With the veils broken, organized roads and safe drivers were more important than ever. She couldn’t clean water but she could make sure the equipment needed would be delivered by licensed drivers. She didn’t have any medical equipment but she could ensure that it was distributed promptly through an orderly transportation system. She had the knowledge and skills. She understood how important her cog was in the wheel of civilization. She would continue the DMV’s work.

The rest is history. For years Esther could be found patrolling the roads and conducting driving tests around Lahaina. Some of the questions changed over the years. “What should you do first if you find a Menehune has cut your brake lines?” and “If you are trying to escape a Night Marcher who wants your skull, but the light is red, are you allowed to continue without coming to a complete stop,” are two of the most recent additions. Esther tried to keep the rest as close to the original as possible. Her staff grew from the initial survivors to a group of over 100, all looking for any bit of the old world they could find. Islanders started to call them “The Regulators” within a year, and the group flourished.

Esther and the rest of the Regulators bit off more than they could chew however, when they presented the great Kānaka chief Ikaika with a letter demanding he register his war canoe. The bill, which included 35-years worth of penalties, was considered a provocation by the chief. When Esther told him that if he didn’t like it he could move to the back of the line a short battle began.

Lives were lost on both sides but the Regulators tenacity was no match for the Kānaka’s numbers. In her younger days Esther might have fought to the end, but with years came some wisdom, and she retreated to reorganize her paperwork. Lahaina hasn’t seen any Regulator activity in decades now, but it is rumored that the group has never been stronger. Some say that they are simply adding fees and penalties to the Kānaka’s bill while continuing to license those not strong enough to fight back elsewhere on the island.

Love them or hate them, there’s no doubt that the Regulators hold an important place in the history of post-fracture Lahaina. If you manage to get a vehicle going make sure you follow the rules of the road and your paperwork is in order. The last thing you want is to see Esther in your rearview mirror.

STORYLINE

Audit Finds DMV Worker Harassed Customers Five Hours a Day for Over Two Years

arrest.jpg

A state audit of the Hawaii Department of Motor Vehicles uncovered that an employee used over half of her work day to pursue what she called “Licensing Cheats,” for over two years. According to the report, 25-year-old Esther Hele, spent five hours a day harassing residents about overdue registration forms and lapsed licenses, all while her supervisor’s knew. Hele has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal review, and criminal investigation.

Officials say that Hele used her job as a data operator, updating information on various transfer and ownership forms, to begin a “vehicle registration vigilante” campaign that lasted over two years. From July 2048 through August 2050, Hele skipped at least 2,600 hours’ worth of work, costing the Hawaiian public more than $72,000.

“It’s beyond me how this person slipped through the cracks, or how her managers are still employed,” says Mayor Alberts Cravalho. Residents are asking the same questions this morning, especially with the announcement of criminal charges of menacing and harassment filed against the Lahaina native.

While her direct supervisor refused an interview, her manager’s attorney did provide a statement which reads in part: “…It is hard to explain what it’s like to work for an organization that is so maligned by the public. If we fully investigated every complaint that came in we’d have to close at least another two lines, and that would just lead to more complaints. A big part of my job is to figure out to what degree my employees aren’t doing their jobs. I talked to Esther, and she seemed just bad to me. I know now that she was in fact, terrible. I regret, and apologize for not seeing that earlier.”

However, apologies aren’t enough for some of Hele’s victims. Dozens of claims regarding stalking, harassment, vandalism, and even threats of bodily harm are being investigated by Lahaina police. Hailoha driver Mark Me’e is one such victim of the troubled DMV worker’s campaign of persecution. He says the trouble all started when he purchased a new car, and let the insurance and registration lapse on his previous vehicle. Me’e says that he ignored the reminders he received since he planned on eventually scrapping his old car, and now wishes he hadn’t. Mark says things started taking a strange turn a few weeks after his first reminder, when Esther started showing up in his social media circles.

“One day I got this message from someone named Esther asking about my job at Hailoha. I didn’t know who she was, so I did a little investigating, and found that she was on almost all my friends and family’s friends lists. I couldn’t figure out how someone I had never heard of before could be friends with almost everyone I knew. I thought maybe I had gone to high school with Esther, and just forgot her.

Then she started asking me about my car all the time, saying things like, ‘You know Hailoha requires every drive to follow all applicable traffic laws, including having your vehicle properly registered, right?’ My mom called me one day saying she had just talked to a lady at the DMV who said I was breaking the law by not registering my car. I figured it was Esther. I contacted her supervisor and made a complaint, and she called me within minutes telling me that I could fool her boss, but not her. She sent pictures of me, and my old car that she had pulled from my work profile page. I told her that I didn’t drive that car anymore. I mean she had all my information, she could see that I registered a new car, but she wouldn’t hear it. Things just got worse.

She contacted my girlfriend saying I was cheating on her in my unregistered vehicle. She called Hailoha and told them that I had provided them with counterfeit insurance documents. I started getting threatening notes in my mailbox, and on my car whenever I went inside a store, warning me that the DMV had the right to charge interest on fines. It was getting out of hand!

It came to a head one night when I got an alert that someone way out in the preservation zone needed a ride. When I got out there I saw what I thought was an old woman all wrapped in a blanket. She got in, and I made some joke about her not having to worry about getting cold, but she didn’t say much. It was about 10 minutes into our ride when she started asking about my old car, and her voice changed. It sounded familiar to me, but it took me a moment to figure out it was Esther in disguise. I slammed on the breaks, put it in park, and ran the rest of the way into town. Later, they found my car parked in my driveway. I don’t know what she had planned, but it wasn’t good.”

Hele had no comment about the complaints against her, and is free on bail. She has plead not guilty and is expected in court next month.

STORYLINE

Fires Put the Future of Abramo “Meat and Greet” Program in Question

fire.jpg

The “Meat and Greet” program was supposed to offer Lahaina’s homebound a nutritious taste of the famous Abramo Chop House and a little companionship during the day. While the program launched with lots of fanfare and excitement about the unique Abramo mini grills, a number of complaints and mishaps have put the future of the program in question. Following a recent house fire, the third since its inception, the service has been temporarily halted awaiting a state review of safety practices.

There are thousands of food delivery programs serving millions across the country, but the Meat and Greet program promised to offer clients a unique experience by grilling their own meals. The service would deliver a specially made grill along with gel-flame heating cans, and a packaged meal to those unable to leave the home. For many, the program seemed like a perfect opportunity to enjoy a kind of meal unavailable in most home delivery programs, but many say the service is dangerous.

Critics contend that giving grills to people that don’t have the ability to leave the house is irresponsible. In addition, they say the heating cans are the cause of the three fires reported. Although nobody has been seriously hurt so far, the last fire destroyed the entire living room of a client’s home before it was extinguished. The State has ordered a stop to the program while a safety investigation is completed.

Despite the concerns, Brandi Essen, operations manager for Abramo Holdings LLC., says the program is perfectly safe and a great option for those who want to “spice up” their food options while being homebound. “Our goal was to offer our friends and neighbors, who have found themselves forced to stay at home due to age or illness, something other than the usual styrofoam cup of soup and stale sandwich wrapped in plastic. Our trained staff deliver the specially made Abramo mini-grills and a week’s worth of fuel on the first visit. We are careful to thoroughly go over all safety protocols and safe food handling practices. Staff never leaves until they are sure our clients have all the necessary tools to assemble their grills. After the initial setup, clients will experience the best meals we have to offer daily. We provide a variety of our artisanal Abramo sausages, juicy burgers from Bob’s Perfect Burger Blend with choice of cheese, pork ribs with 4 delicious sauce options, and a pack of our homemade cracklins or our famous foie gras chips with every visit. There may be other food options for the elderly and sick, but when it comes to taste, we’re all alone.”

Despite Essen’s assurances a growing number of people have called into question the nutritional quality of the meals. The son of one of the program’s clients points out that the meals his mother received “…contained 110% of her recommended daily caloric intake, most of that from fat, and 150% of her daily sodium. They include packets of vitamins so they meet the minimum nutritional guidelines, it’s irresponsible. I’m surprised they don’t include cigars.”

Betsy Kaukau from the Hawaii State Department of Health says the fires and the nutritional concerns are just the tip of the iceberg. “I was shocked when I started looking into the program,” she says. “These fuel canisters have not been approved for direct use with food. In fact we’ve had numerous reports of fuel leaking onto meals, making them dangerous to eat. For many of these people, this is the only meal they will get in a day, and it is unreasonable to expect them to be able to properly cook it themselves. Many have become sick from improper ventilation and undercooked pork products. I believe the fires may be one of the safest aspects of the Meat and Greet service.”

Founder Bob Abramo vehemently denies that the program is unsafe, and says that the halt in service is a gross government overreach. “Since the dawn of time people have felt the need to apply fire to meat. We just want to help people who might have thought that they’d never get a chance to BBQ at home again, a chance to taste flame charred goodness.” He adds, “I keep hearing that our fuel is dangerous, or our food is dangerous, but lots of things can be dangerous. I don’t think that we should put these people in little pens for protection. These were free range people, and we feel this is a great way to help them have a taste of freedom again. I care about our customers breakfast, lunch, and dinner, not just around election time like these career politicians and government employees. The truth is we may be serving some their last meal, and I think they deserve something meaty and juicy. I believe the elderly of Lahaina have been aged to perfection and deserve the joy only fire and choice cuts of meat can provide.”

STORYLINE

The Abramo Meat Museum Is Unfit for Public Consumption

meat.jpg

After contacting representatives from the Department of Health, the Mayor’s Office, and the Better Business Bureau, it has become apparent to me that I will be receiving very little help regarding my complaints about the Abramo Meat Museum. Since the officials of Lahaina have shown that they have no interest in addressing this public hazard, I’m writing this letter-to-the-editor in the hopes that it will save at least one family from going through the ordeal that we have over the past few days. What was supposed to be a dream vacation has turned into a bloody nightmare. No matter what you’ve heard, or how fun you might think it would be, I urge everyone to stay away from this dangerously run disease factory.

For almost 20 years it had been a dream of mine to return to Lahaina with the extended family. Four generations of us have been married along the beautiful beaches, and I wanted to share my love of the people and this wonderful place with my daughter and her family. When we finally found a time that worked for everyone after all these years, it seemed like fate was finally on my side. Everything was spectacular for the first few days, until my grandson heard about the Abramo Meat Museum from the concierge at the hotel. He was obsessed. All he could talk about was visiting the “monument to all things meat.” Since I’m a fan of all things kitschy, I offered to take the kids and give my daughter and son-in-law a day to themselves. It was one of the worst decisions of my life.

I knew something was wrong immediately, but didn’t trust my instincts. When someone walks into the museum they are greeted with a sign that reads like the preamble to a manifesto: “Meat, the life giving flesh from tasty animals, has contributed to the welfare of man since the dawn of time. The muscle and sumptuous fatty tissues have supplied us with the protein we needed to build empires, and the energy necessary to construct the wonders of the world. Take a walk with us now down the road of meals past, back to the very first hunt and learn why we celebrate special occasions with a big juicy steak and not a salad.”

The museum does have an impressive collection of meat and butchery related objects, but it was not the delightfully quirky homage to meat that I was expecting. Instead, I found the exhibits to be full of misinformation and have an alarming seriousness to them that made me uneasy. While I was looking at a collection of blood-stained cleavers on the wall, my grandson asked if he could take his little sister to Oxtail Junction, the kids area of the museum. I told him to go ahead. That was my second huge mistake of the day.

After a few more minutes of looking at various butchery tools in display cases, I turned the corner to find my grandson staring at a mural with his mouth wide open. It wasn’t until I was standing next to him that I realized what it was we were looking at. This section of the museum was dedicated to stories of failed expeditions and people who were forced to practice cannibalism in order to survive. The mural was a horrific depiction of the Donner Party along with the recipe for something called, “Pioneer Meatloaf.” My grandson looked at me and asked, “If we get lost can we eat Trisha?” Before I could tell him that we would not be eating his sister, or explain that it was highly unlikely that those starving pioneers brought a meat grinder with them, I heard my granddaughter crying.

I found her in the kids area standing in front of a working meat slicer with her doll in one hand, and the doll’s feet in another. Sitting a few feet away was an obviously inebriated employee in an ill-fitting uniform with a star on his chest, and a ridiculously small hat. “I’m Sheriff Short Rib,” he croaked. I asked him how he could let a 4-year-old turn on a slicer and ruin her doll. I screamed at him about how irresponsible it was to have a working meat slicer in an area designated for children. His only response was, “We’d all have more fun if we followed the rules,” and pointed to a list on the wall. I couldn’t speak for a few seconds because I was so furious, but my anger disappeared when I saw my grandson run into the room chasing another little boy with a knife.

Before I could scream for him to stop, he smacked the other child in the back and yelled, “Tag!” It was then that I noticed the first child also had a knife. I stopped the pair and asked what on Earth they were thinking running around with knives like that, and they pointed to the next room were a number of children were chasing each other with various butchery tools. I turned to the sheriff and asked if he planned on doing anything about it, and he yelled out, “We’d all have more fun if we followed the rules,” and gestured vaguely to the list on the wall.

It was the final straw. I told my grandson that we were leaving and turned to get his sister. That’s when I noticed poor little Trisha was standing in front of the sausage casing machine, eating the mix straight out of the extruder, with a line of children behind her. I shrieked, and my grandson asked how many sausages I thought we could make out of his sister. To be honest, I don’t remember leaving. The next thing I recall is walking through the parking lot, carrying Trisha, and warning anyone who would listen, not to go in the museum. However, unbeknownst to me, I was not done dealing with the fallout of our 20 minute visit.

It was only a few hours later that Trisha started to become violently ill. While her brother asked me if I thought she was still safe to eat, I got directions to the nearest hospital. The doctors say it was the most aggressive case of food poisoning they had ever seen. I had to call my daughter to cut her day short, it was so severe. For the next 3 days they nursed Trisha back to health, and I had to explain to my son-in-law why his boy was suddenly obsessed with eating his sibling. When we called the museum to complain, they denied all responsibility saying Trisha was probably suffering from, “the meat sweats.”

Betsy Kaukau, a health inspector from the Department of Health, is the only official to take our concerns seriously so far. She says she will do everything she can to make sure another family doesn’t have to go through what we have. I’ve also contacted a lawyer and we’re looking into any, and all legal options. In the meantime, it is my hope that this letter forces other Lahaina officials to take action, and serves as food for thought to anyone thinking of visiting this disaster waiting to happen. In short, the Abramo Meat Museum is rotten to the core.