Derek Achong

Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing yes­ter­day joined with res­i­dents of Wood­brook to op­pose the re­new­al of liquor li­cences for three bars along Ari­api­ta Av­enue.Lee Sing, along with at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and the res­i­dents, at­tend­ed yes­ter­day's hear­ing of the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee for St George East to voice their con­cerns over the re­new­al of the bars' liquor li­cences.

The hear­ing was held at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.The busi­ness­es be­ing chal­lenged by the group are Frankie's Restau­rant and Bar, La Ha­bana and Tequi­la Twist. All three are lo­cat­ed with­in walk­ing dis­tance of each oth­er.The is­sues raised were not com­plete­ly heard dur­ing the hear­ing and the mat­ters were lat­er ad­journed by head of the com­mit­tee, Se­nior Mag­is­trate An­nette McKen­zie, to next Tues­day.

In an in­ter­view af­ter the ad­journ­ment, Lee Sing said the cor­po­ra­tion de­cid­ed to in­ter­vene af­ter it no­ticed pa­trons were en­gag­ing in un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ties out­side the bars.He said: "I want peo­ple to un­der­stand that I am a man that likes a good fete but I will not en­cour­age law­less­ness."

Armed with a se­ries of pho­tographs as well as a pe­ti­tion signed by more than 2,000 res­i­dents, Lee Sing said the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ed bar pa­trons block­ing the side­walks and roads in Wood­brook and bar own­ers sell­ing al­co­hol to cus­tomers on the pave­ment."This is no dif­fer­ent to peo­ple park­ing on the pave­ment or uri­nat­ing on the street or street vend­ing that is il­le­gal or street dwellers. These all have one catch phrase, it is il­le­gal and there­fore it is un­law­ful," Lee Sing said.

A news team from the T&T Guardian lat­er vis­it­ed the area to get re­spons­es to the com­plaints from own­ers and man­agers of the es­tab­lish­ments in ques­tion.Crisan­to Gas­con Hor­shan, the own­er of Frankie's, who is al­so a res­i­dent of Wood­brook, said he was will­ing to meet with Lee Sing and res­i­dents to find a so­lu­tion to their com­plaints.

"There is a se­vere lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the busi­ness­men, the res­i­dents and cor­po­ra­tion. Un­til we can cor­rect this sit­u­a­tion there will al­ways be back and forth ar­gu­ment," Hor­shan said.He said that even be­fore res­i­dents be­gan com­plain­ing, he hired se­cu­ri­ty guards to in­struct limers to re­frain from block­ing the pave­ment and road.

"I am do­ing my best. I am try­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the res­i­dents to stop the ills from tak­ing place but there is on­ly so much I can do," Hor­shan said.He sug­gest­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers be sta­tioned at var­i­ous points along the av­enue to pre­vent il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.Hor­shan said the clo­sures of bars in Wood­brook would have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on the com­mu­ni­ty as well as the econ­o­my.

"What peo­ple fail to re­alise is you go and want to at­tack and an­tag­o­nise peo­ple, they have to re­alise is fam­i­lies they 'mash­ing up' as well. Many peo­ple earn their liv­ing from work­ing hard in these bars," Hor­shan added.