HONOLULU -- Honolulu City Council members Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a bill to ban shark tours on Oahu.

Opponents said shark tours are dangerous to ocean users and should be outlawed, but tour operators said they have harmed no one.

The Maui County Council has already approved banning shark tours on the Valley Isle.

Honolulu Council member Charles Djou said Oahu needs a similar shark tour ban.

"This is something I don't think should be going on in our waters here and so we need to put some teeth into the law," Djou said.

Shark tours by law must operate at least three miles out at sea.

Djou's bill goes after shark tours not at sea, but on land, prohibiting the sale of tickets or advertising of the tours from land based offices.

Opponent Greg Knudsen said shark tours are dangerous.

"The shark tours do operate by attracting sharks and their presence brings sharks into an area and they do that by feeding," Knudsen said.

Currently there are just two shark tours operations on Oahu, both of them are in Haleiwa. An operator wanted to open one in Hawaii Kai, but backed down after community opposition.

Joe Pavsek has run shark tours out of Haleiwa for nine years.

"We had no increase in shark attacks on the north shore. We don't attract tiger sharks. We attract Galapagos and sand bar sharks which nobody in Hawaii has even heard about.

They are in deep water and they stay in deep water," said Pavsek.

Pavsek said it would be impossible to stop his sale of shark tour tickets because they are marketed by hundreds of distributors and stopping him from advertising violates his first amendment rights.

"It's going to be a great court case," Pavsek said.

Three state lawmakers also plan to introduce bills to either further regulate or ban shark tours.