Geisha Kow­lessar

Busi­ness­men along the nor­mal­ly bustling Tra­garete Road, Ari­api­ta Av­enue and the West­ern Main Road com­plained of slow sales as the new traf­fic plan for west Port-of-Spain went in­to ef­fect yes­ter­day. Taxi dri­vers play­ing the St James and Long Cir­cu­lar routes have hint­ed an in­crease in fares with the an­tic­i­pat­ed de­mand of off-route ser­vices. Busi­ness­men al­so are re­quest­ing ur­gent con­sul­ta­tion with the Works Min­istry to dis­cuss park­ing arrange­ments for cus­tomers. On the ma­jor road­ways, in­clud­ing Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Park Street, Tra­garete Road and along the West­ern Main Road, dri­vers are not al­lowed to park dur­ing the peak pe­ri­od, from 6 am to 9 am and 3 pm to 6 pm. Dri­vers are ad­vised to find park­ing along the mi­nor streets.Grant Chin, man­ag­er of Jacque­line's Patis­serie Ltd, Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, cal­cu­lat­ed $1,000 in loss­es for yes­ter­day morn­ing. "Busi­ness has dropped dras­ti­cal­ly. In the morn­ing we nor­mal­ly see about 100 cus­tomers from about 7 am to 10 am. We must have on­ly seen about 40 to 50."

Say­ing he was pleased with the pres­ence of the po­lice he ex­pressed con­fi­dence once peo­ple got fa­mil­iar with the plan busi­ness would im­prove. Busi­ness­man Robert Gib­son, whose busi­ness­place, Gib­son Wheels, is on Tra­garete Road, oblique­ly op­po­site the NP Quik Shoppe, de­scribed the area as a 'ghost town' for the greater part of yes­ter­day morn­ing. He said: "This is our sec­ond cus­tomer and nor­mal­ly here is packed. I think it def­i­nite­ly needs to go back to the old way be­cause peo­ple are go­ing to lose busi­ness. This is def­i­nite­ly not go­ing to work. He said greater con­sul­ta­tion was need­ed be­fore the plan was im­ple­ment­ed.

Gib­son's wife, Su­san, ex­pressed con­cern for chil­dren and el­der­ly peo­ple want­i­ng to get in­to the city from Tra­garete Road, say­ing they would now be forced to walk to Ari­api­ta Av­enue. She said when school re­opened the sit­u­a­tion would be worst as it would be dif­fi­cult for chil­dren to cross at cer­tain points. "It's bad for the cus­tomers... for every­one. This def­i­nite­ly can­not stay as it is be­cause there will be many busi­nes­sown­ers and em­ploy­ees will start to com­plain." At Smokey's and Bun­ty in St James the pop­u­lar bar was al­so qui­et. Shane Munro, one of the man­agers, said there were no pro­vi­sions for park­ing. He said there were less than five cus­tomers yes­ter­day morn­ing.