Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Star­lite Group Lim­it­ed (SGL) has said cones in the carpark of its Diego Mar­tin phar­ma­cy are in­tend­ed to keep park­ing spaces avail­able for cus­tomers, par­tic­u­lar­ly el­der­ly peo­ple and those with lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty who need con­ve­nient ac­cess to the phar­ma­cy en­trance.

The com­pa­ny’s state­ment fol­lowed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der’s crit­i­cism of the es­tab­lish­ment’s man­age­ment and own­er on Mon­day. He al­so called for a “boy­cott” of the busi­ness.

Alexan­der di­rect­ed a strong­ly word­ed out­burst par­tic­u­lar­ly at Star­lite Group Ltd man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ger­ald Aboud, crit­i­cis­ing the cones placed in park­ing spaces for phar­ma­cy cus­tomers.

Re­fer­ring to “de one per cent”, Alexan­der point­ed out that peo­ple al­so used a gym on the com­pound. The gym rents space from Star­lite Shop­ping Plaza (SGP).

Alexan­der claimed that when the drug­store closed, se­cu­ri­ty guards re­served park­ing spaces for phar­ma­cy cus­tomers by plac­ing cones in them. He said he would al­ways be an ac­tivist, “...Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter or not!”

Crit­i­cis­ing Aboud, Alexan­der said he would nev­er en­ter a Star­lite Drugs again and urged gym mem­bers to boy­cott the busi­ness. Star­lite Group Ltd, a ten­ant of SGP, de­fend­ed the place­ment of the cones. In a no­tice, the group said: “Fol­low­ing a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, we would like to clar­i­fy why cones are placed in cer­tain park­ing spaces out­side Star­lite.

“Gym pa­trons and work­ers from a near­by con­struc­tion project have been us­ing our cus­tomer park­ing, re­duc­ing the spaces avail­able to those vis­it­ing the phar­ma­cy: the cones help keep these spaces avail­able for Star­lite cus­tomers par­tic­u­lar­ly el­der­ly cus­tomers and those with lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty who need con­ve­nient ac­cess to our en­trance.”

Aboud al­so said: “For a long time Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der has been dis­parag­ing peo­ple’s good name and rep­u­ta­tion as well as at­tack­ing mi­nor­i­ty groups and cit­i­zens in this coun­try.

“I’d say if Mr Alexan­der is to gain the trust of the peo­ple he needs to start act­ing re­spon­si­bly. I’ll al­so say to Phillip that there’s no en­e­my out there, oth­er than ‘the en­e­my with­in’.”

He said Alexan­der’s “rant”, prompt­ed by hav­ing to walk a few ex­tra steps to the gym, was “dis­turb­ing and dis­gust­ing”.

“Right now, this coun­try needs more uni­ty if we’re to over­come the chal­lenges fac­ing us,” Aboud added.

Alexan­der re­spond­ed on Tues­day: “Any­time you call out cer­tain mem­bers of the one per cent com­mu­ni­ty for wrong­do­ing they ac­cuse you of at­tack­ing them be­cause of their race. That Aboud of Star­lite Drugs re­sort­ing to that tired bo­gey isn’t sur­pris­ing, but by this point I think the en­tire coun­try could tell a smoke screen when they see one,” he said, adding that any­one in­ter­viewed at the plaza would agree with him.

“Malls and plazas work by shar­ing com­mon spaces over the course of the day, re­ly­ing on some stores like gyms to have their biggest crowds ear­ly in the morn­ing, banks dur­ing the work­ing day, and restau­rants most­ly at night.

“If park­ing spots were set aside per store every sin­gle store would close be­cause they all need a max­i­mum of spaces at dif­fer­ent times.

“There’s al­so con­ve­nience. Peo­ple go to malls and plazas to mul­ti­ple stores. If one were to fol­low Aboud’s log­ic then you’d have to move your car when you were fin­ished at the phar­ma­cy and want­ed to go some­where else,” he said, al­so crit­i­cis­ing the se­cu­ri­ty firm in­volved.

Alexan­der’s ac­tions drew back­lash from mem­bers of the pub­lic, some of whom ques­tioned a min­is­ter’s “fight” with cit­i­zens. Some crit­i­cised Alexan­der and his en­try in­to gov­ern­ment, and al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment over oth­er is­sues. One per­son de­scribed his ac­tion as un­prece­dent­ed, ques­tion­ing a min­is­ter “...cam­paign­ing against a pri­vate en­ter­prise over park­ing space.”

Alexan­der, how­ev­er, said yes­ter­day, "Any­time you call out cer­tain mem­bers of the 1% com­mu­ni­ty for wrong­do­ing they ac­cuse you of at­tack­ing them be­cause of their race. That Aboud of Star­lite Drugs re­sort­ing to that tired bo­gey isn't sur­pris­ing, but by this point I think the en­tire coun­try could tell a smoke screen when they see one," he said, adding that any­one in­ter­viewed at the plaza would agree with him.

"Malls and plazas work by shar­ing com­mon spaces over the course of the day, re­ly­ing on some stores like gyms to have their biggest crowds ear­ly in the morn­ing, banks dur­ing the work­ing day, and restau­rants most­ly at night. If park­ing spots were set aside per store every sin­gle store would close be­cause they all need a max­i­mum of spaces at dif­fer­ent times. There's al­so con­ve­nience. Peo­ple go to malls and plazas to mul­ti­ple stores. If one were to fol­low Aboud’s log­ic then you 'd have to move your car when you were fin­ished at the phar­ma­cy and want­ed to go some­where else," Alexan­der said al­so slam­ming the se­cu­ri­ty firm in the is­sue.