HONOLULU — Two Arab-owned hemp businesses in Hawaiʻi are facing aggressive, simultaneous enforcement actions from the state Department of Health — with one hit with the first fines ever issued under the state’s new hemp laws and the other subjected to a coordinated multi-location crackdown.
The convergence has placed the Hawaiʻi Department of Health under growing scrutiny and raised questions about how the state is selecting businesses for enforcement under a regulatory system only now beginning to show its teeth.
Public records confirm that Island Smoke & Vape, owned by Palestinian-American businessman Amr Abdeljawad, was fined $3,000 after the business refused to allow health inspectors into restricted areas without a search warrant a few days earlier. When inspectors returned to deliver the enforcement action and again sought access to storage areas, staff again declined, insisting upon judicial authorization.
Just days after this second refusal, the department imposed a second penalty of $10,000.
The combined $13,000 represents the first fines ever issued under the state’s new hemp laws and standards. The orders also exposed the business to potentially more serious consequences, including product embargoes, seizures, and action affecting its state registration.
At nearly the same time, a large contingent of Department of Health officials descended on multiple locations of Oahu Dispensary and Provisions, operated by businessman Lance Alyas, who is of Iraqi descent. The coordinated visits were followed by multiple formal, written warnings for each location of his. Alyas is already suing Hawaiʻi officials in federal court over the state’s hemp enforcement policies.
No comparable burst of publicly documented enforcement against non-Arab-owned hemp retailers has emerged during the same window.
The department was asked to explain how the two businesses were selected for enforcement, whether other manufactured-hemp retailers had been subjected to comparable inspections or sanctions, and why the first fines under the new hemp regime were issued to Abdeljawad’s business.
It provided no explanation.
The dispute at Island Smoke & Vape began July 28, when inspectors sought access to portions of the business that Abdeljawad considered nonpublic. He refused and insisted that officials obtain a warrant before entering. What began as a dispute over access escalated within days into $13,000 in penalties — the first of their kind under Hawaiʻi’s new hemp enforcement framework.
Meanwhile, the enforcement effort involving Oahu Dispensary and Provisions was broader in scope. Department officials appeared at multiple locations in coordinated visits and later issued written warnings against the company.
There is no concrete evidence presently establishing that either business was selected because of the owner’s ethnicity, but multiple local area sources confirmed that they, too, had heard of a specifically aimed effort.
The matter is exacerbated by the man at the helm: Health Director Kenneth S. Fink, a retired Air Force colonel who served in Operation Enduring Freedom. In a November 2024 podcast, Fink spoke of his past desire to join a war against an Arab nation. That he now commands a department aggressively targeting Arab-owned businesses is especially problematic.
The Department of Health has been asked to explain the basis for selecting both businesses for enforcement, whether other hemp retailers have faced comparable scrutiny, and why the state’s first fines under the new regime were issued to an Arab-owned business. The department has not responded to those inquiries.
