A wall inside the foyer of the iconic Royal Hawaiian hotel protects an enormous Waikiki sand sculpture.
The first of its type to be shown at the five-star resort, the sculpture is supposed to symbolize two keiki — or Hawaii’s youngsters — during Makahiki season, the historic Hawaiian New Year festival. The artist finished the painting in mid-July 2019, then returned to Florida. Only a few months later, the hotel flew him back to Hawaii to fix some unanticipated damage.
A young girl was caught on security video crawling over the wall that kept the sculpture protected from public harm in August 2019. In the video, she destroys and defaces the magnificent sand sculpture with her bare hands, striking off one of the figure’s heads, ripping through facial features, digging into the sand, and even tossing random things at it.
All of that time and effort was squandered in a couple of seconds.
The vandal then escaped with another adolescent girl who had been filming the incident on her phone.
She caused $1,500 in damage, and hotel workers draped many leis over the wreckage before the artist came to make repairs.
The females in issue were quickly identified when Honolulu police released the film.
