Wait a minute! Isn’t the function of government to protect us? Who really needs protection from the alleged scourge of transient vacation rentals on Maui?
Might it better be said that the transient vacation rental owners, who are citizens too, need protection from their loss of income, now resulting in loss of homes, which they are suffering, merely because they followed flawed instructions from that same government?
No one who runs a TVR is rich. It’s just too much bother. Taking the advertising, cleaning, bookkeeping and hosting necessary into account, TVRs offer no more income than long-term rentals. If anything, they are a service, offered to our treasured visitors as an alternative to standard hotel/condo fare.
TVR owners ought to be lauded as local heroes, not reviled in a misguided quest to uphold outdated legislation. In exchange for the flexibility necessary to accommodate visits from ohana and friends, TVR owners provide us with something which helps make Maui Maui!
Please stop punishing them now.
Nadine Newlight
Paia
