Hawaii County, HI Animal Ordinances: Pet Groomer Rules (2026)

Hawaii County Code § 25-1-5(b) defines a 'kennel' as 'a commercial establishment in which dogs or domesticated animals are housed, groomed, bred, boarded, trained, or sold, all for a fee or compensation,' expressly including animal quarantine stations. Because grooming is named directly in that definition, any Big Island business that grooms pets for pay is a kennel for zoning purposes, whether or not it also boards or breeds animals. That use is not permitted in every district: in the RA (Residential and Agricultural) district, § 25-5-52(14) allows kennels only where the building site is at least five acres and any kennel structure sits at least one hundred feet from every lot line.

In the CG (General Commercial) district, kennels are listed among permitted uses only if housed in a sound-attenuated building, so a storefront groomer in a strip mall needs its space built to control noise before the use is allowed. In the ML (Light Industrial) district, kennels are permitted outright without the sound-attenuation or acreage conditions attached elsewhere. A mobile groomer who visits clients' homes rather than operating from a fixed commercial site falls outside the kennel definition, since the code's use classifications apply to establishments, not to a service performed on someone else's building site.

Operating a fixed-location grooming business in a district where kennels aren't a listed permitted use, or without meeting the acreage, setback or sound-attenuation conditions attached to that district, makes the business an unpermitted zoning use.