HONOLULU -- A Honolulu City Council committee on Wednesday killed two proposals to either ban outright or limit new companies from starting the tours on Oahu.

Two shark tour companies operating out of Haleiwa for the last nine years brought dozens of supporters to help them fight for the right to keep in business. The businesses take visitors down in cages 3 miles out from shore to view sand bar and Galapagos sharks.

"I have been out there for nine years. I go out there every single day, seven days a week and i don't have one single person coming up complaining to me," North Shore Shark Adventures owner Joe Pavsek said.

The operators said they take out 40,000 visitors each year.

"I think in these hard economic times it would be a shame to shut down something that is pumping a lot of money into the state," North Shore resident Mark Glaser said.

A group of Hawaii Kai residents successfully discouraged a shark tour operator from starting a business in Maunalua Bay. They were hoping for an island-wide ban.

"I have always felt that a passive viewing of sharks in their natural habitat might not be that bad, but this is artificial. This is attracting sharks. This is causing them to congregate," Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board Chairman Greg Knudsen said.

Others objected to a proposal to grandfather in the two existing Haleiwa shark operations, but ban them elsewhere.

"Logically how can we say it is not OK in East Oahu, but that practice is perfectly fine on the north shore. I don't think there is any way to justify that distinction," Haleiwa fisherman Ed Ebisui said.

Oahu is not the only county to deal with the shark tour issue. Maui has already banned shark tours even though no one has set up a shark tour operation there yet.

Some council members rejecting Oahu's shark ban proposals said the matter should be handled instead by the state or federal government.