Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph says crime has been re­duced to a min­i­mum in the bor­ough since the state of emer­gency has been im­posed. "Oth­er than the at­tempt­ed rob­bery the oth­er day, crime has gone down to a min­i­mum since the state of emer­gency came in­to ef­fect," Youseph said. "There were a few mi­nor in­frac­tions like a few com­pli­ance in­ci­dents when we caught some peo­ple af­ter the cur­few." The at­tempt­ed rob­bery the may­or re­ferred to was an in­ci­dent in which po­lice shot and killed two men who at­tempt­ed to rob Good­wood Rac­ing Ser­vice, Green Street, Ari­ma, on Mon­day. Speak­ing af­ter the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion's statu­to­ry meet­ing at the Town Hall, Sorzano Street, on Thurs­day, Youseph said the ma­jor­i­ty of Arim­i­ans were in favour of the state of emer­gency and it was a very pop­u­lar de­ci­sion.

"The Gov­ern­ment in its wis­dom and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar felt it is nec­es­sary and I am back­ing them 100 per cent," he said. When asked how the state of emer­gency had af­fect­ed sales, he said it was still too ear­ly to as­sess as it on­ly came in­to ef­fect on Mon­day. "We had a very suc­cess­ful Bor­ough Day and Ari­ma Fest this year," he said. "We have done a lot more with less re­sources this year, putting on an art ex­hi­bi­tion, food fair and a mul­ti-cul­tur­al show." Youseph ac­knowl­edged that cer­tain busi­ness­es such as gro­ceries and night­clubs would be af­fect­ed neg­a­tive­ly hav­ing to close ear­li­er.