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Friday, July 11, 2025

Cops called to control crowd at Marabella market

by

Sascha Wilson
1502 days ago
20210531
Shoppers line up outside the Marbella market, waiting their turn to enter on Sunday morning.

Shoppers line up outside the Marbella market, waiting their turn to enter on Sunday morning.

Rishi Ragoonath

Sascha Wil­son

Mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers were once again at the Mara­bel­la mar­ket yes­ter­day as scores of cus­tomers turned out to buy goods.

In­ter­viewed at the mar­ket, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said the in­crease in cus­tomer traf­fic was as a re­sult of the Princes Town and Pe­nal mar­kets be­ing closed yes­ter­day.

“It is not nor­mal for us to be op­er­at­ing on a pub­lic hol­i­day but giv­en the cir­cum­stances and chal­lenges that we are faced with we de­cid­ed to open. I don’t think Princes Town open and the oth­er usu­al mar­kets are not open this morn­ing. That is why you are see­ing a surge here and an in­crease in the nor­mal crowd. It don’t usu­al­ly be as bad as I saw here this morn­ing be­cause the line is go­ing around the cor­ner.”

How­ev­er, he said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers were at the venue try­ing to man­age the crowd and en­sure ad­her­ence to the pub­lic health guide­lines. While so­cial dis­tance mark­ers were on the ground, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice South Snr Supt Ce­cil San­tana could be heard plead­ing with some peo­ple who were ig­nor­ing the mark­ers, to so­cial dis­tance.

 Customers shopping at the Marabella Market on Sunday morning pay no attention to the COVID-91 guidelines.

Customers shopping at the Marabella Market on Sunday morning pay no attention to the COVID-91 guidelines.

Rishi Ragoonath

He said his of­fi­cers were al­so do­ing pa­trols to en­sure that there was no il­le­gal vend­ing in and around the mar­ket.

“We al­so have pe­ri­od­i­cal an­nounce­ments be­ing made ask­ing peo­ple do their shop­ping quick­ly and ex­it so that peo­ple on the out­side will be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to come in­to the mar­ket so they to can do their shop­ping. We are al­so en­sur­ing that they wash their hands and they main­tain so­cial dis­tance and that they wear their face mask.”

He said peo­ple were ad­vised that if they fail to prop­er­ly wear their masks they would be is­sued with a tick­et.

How­ev­er, Gun­ness Seecha­ran of Re­form Vil­lage was not hap­py with the fre­quent crowds at the mar­ket.

"I have been reg­u­lar on a Sun­day since the pan­dem­ic and I find every time you come here the line get­ting worse," he com­plained.

At a press con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced more strin­gent re­stric­tions as COVID-19 cas­es are still very high.

He, how­ev­er, placed no re­stric­tions on mar­kets, ex­cept to re­in­force the im­por­tance of not con­gre­gat­ing and com­ply­ing with all the COVID-19 re­stric­tions and guide­lines.


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