JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

City merchants upset over no ease in wrecking

by

20131212

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud said yes­ter­day busi­ness­es in Port-of-Spain were suf­fer­ing at the hands of mer­ci­less wreck­ers.He made the com­ment in re­sponse to the po­lice as­so­ci­a­tion's an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day that of­fi­cers would not let up on the wreck­ing for the Christ­mas pe­ri­od.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Aboud said Port-of-Spain con­tin­ued to be de­prived of park­ing. He added it was sad the Po­lice Ser­vice was not will­ing to give them a re­prieve, adding busi­ness­men were frus­trat­ed by that.

Speak­ing to mem­bers of the me­dia at the week­ly po­lice press brief­ing yes­ter­day, pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer, act­ing in­spec­tor Wayne Mys­tar, said the wreck­ing of ve­hi­cles would con­tin­ue be­cause a park-and-ride sys­tem had been es­tab­lished to fa­cil­i­tate shop­pers. He called on mo­torists to ob­serve the park­ing rules of the city.But Aboud said while politi­cians were "run­ning around is­su­ing ham­pers," the city was be­ing choked to death by the re­moval of more and more park­ing.

"While we sin­cere­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the park-and-ride ini­tia­tive, it has not been able to re­place much need­ed park­ing fa­cil­i­ties and strong dis­sat­is­fac­tion is cir­cu­lat­ing among the large and small busi­ness­men," Aboud said.He said over a dozen rep­re­sen­ta­tions were made to vary­ing lev­els of gov­ern­ment to rec­ti­fy the prob­lem, yet the "ter­ror" of wreck­ing per­sists.He said the on­ly law that seemed to be en­forced in the city was the park­ing law, adding there were times when cars were wrecked and their spots seized by a street ven­dor.

"Busi­ness­peo­ple are not sur­prised by re­marks of Wayne Mys­tar. We have be­come ac­cus­tomed to hav­ing our re­quest de­nied while all oth­ers in­voke their re­quest as is Christ­mas sea­son," Aboud said.Dur­ing the press brief­ing, Mys­tar al­so sought to as­sure cit­i­zens shop­ping in the cap­i­tal and oth­er shop­ping zones for the Christ­mas sea­son would be safe, as po­lice of­fi­cers would be out in their num­bers pa­trolling shop­ping ar­eas.

He high­light­ed the "Safe City" ini­tia­tive launched by the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion last month, which he said was still in ef­fect.Mys­tar al­so warned that mo­torists should keep valu­ables out of the sight of pos­si­ble thieves.He added that home­own­ers should al­so be weary of any­one seek­ing to of­fer as­sis­tance at this time as that may be a lure to gain ac­cess to their homes. Scaf­fold­ing should al­so not be left near homes, he said, as that may be used by thieves to gain en­try.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored