A woman in Hawaii ambushed a small wedding ceremony and threatened to call the police on them for apparently violating local COVID-19 regulations.
The coronavirus confrontation happened in a tucked away area of Waimanalo Beach in Oahu, home to the capital Honolulu and the highest number of cases in the state.
The video begins with the unidentified wedding crasher filming with her cell phone as she walks onto Waimanalo Beach.
‘They’re hiding,’ she says, turning towards what appears to be a row of houses or rental properties. ‘The cops are coming.’
‘They’re getting married right now. I’m trying not to be really rude, but I’ve had enough of this s***,’ she adds.
She focuses her camera on a group of around eight people, some of whom are wearing face masks, in the midst of sharing nuptials.
‘Aloha, aloha! That’s not your house, you’re lying. This is the beach and the beach is closed,’ the unidentified woman says.
The bride is heard trying to explain the situation, but the woman interrupts to point of that the beach is currently closed because of the pandemic.
She tells the group, which includes children, that they will arrested for holding the wedding ceremony on the beach.
‘The cops are coming,’ the woman says before turning her attention to the officiant of the wedding. ‘You’re always doing this for money!’
An unidentified woman recorded herself breaking up a small wedding on Waimanalo Beach on Oahu, Hawaii, over COVID-19 beach regulations
The officiant ushers the small group off the beach and towards the residence while the woman continues to chide them.
When one guest argues that they were on someone’s property, the woman answers,’You want to tell me about property? Let’s talk about property cause she’s going to get arrested, too.’
‘It’s not harassing,’ the woman adds.
A bystander who appears to have witnessed the exchange defends the wedding ceremony.
‘Honey, these people don’t know that’s the property line,’ she says.
It’s unclear by the video’s end if the group was arrested or if the couple was successfully married.
However, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural resources ordered that beach wedding permits are invalid through September 4.
‘With the approval of Governor Ige, Mayor Caldwell closed Oahu beaches to all activities except ocean access effective 8/8/20 at 12:01AM through 9/4/20,’ the agency said.
Unidentified woman: ‘Aloha, aloha! That’s not your house, you’re lying. This is the beach and the beach is closed’
The woman chastised the wedding party for reportedly throwing a beach wedding after Oahu officials prohibited the act earlier this month
‘No new Wiki Permits will be issued for Oahu and any permits already issued for dates in the closure period are invalid.’
Activities like surfing and swimming are still allowed, but social gatherings on the beach are not.
Additionally, certain types of short-term rentals, including renting out an entire home to tourists for a short period of time, were deemed illegal on Oahu on August 1.
The island is working to mitigate coronavirus spread and unregulated tourism. It’s unclear if members of the wedding party were tourists or locals.
Honolulu County, where Waimanalo Beach is located, has recorded 4,591 confirmed coronavirus cases, 33 deaths and 246 hospitalizations since Friday.
The Hawaii COVID-19 dashboard showed Honolulu County far surpassing the number of cases and deaths of other counties.
Hawaii County amassed 146 cases, Kauai County had 54 and Maui County counted 226.
The entire state of Hawaii has just over 5,000 infections and 39 deaths.
Officials in Hawaii have struggled with tourism during the pandemic because of visitors fleeing to the islands and not quarantining for 14 days, per official mandate.
In one instance, a 20-year-old from Oregon and a 19-year-old from Washington were arrested in May for violating the mandatory 14-day travel quarantine.
The Oregon man was also arrested for animal cruelty after allegedly shooting a rooster with a speargun in Honolulu.
At that time, Hawaii officials announced that they had arrested 15 people for flouting the 14-day quarantine.