It's Holy Thurs­day night on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, but much of the ac­tiv­i­ties hap­pen­ing in this once-res­i­den­tial area were any­thing but sa­cred. Cold beers, lo­cal and im­port­ed, were be­ing guz­zled from road­side bars, pave­ments and kerbs. The fin­er es­tab­lish­ments serve wine, cock­tails, liqueurs and sushi. Pa­trons spilled out on­to the pave­ment from La Ha­bana, next to Domi­no's Piz­za. Much low­er down at Lev­els, a bar and lounge at the cor­ner of Tay­lor Street, which has been at­tract­ing an ur­ban crowd, was packed, with more pa­trons mak­ing their way in af­ter 11 pm. The night was young. Gy­ro carts line the av­enue. Dou­ble ven­dors, once a very rare sight on the strip, are as com­mon now as their gy­ro com­peti­tors. Hun­gry limers al­so have a choice of Chi­nese fast food, Wendy's for ham­burg­er and fries, More Vi­no for sushi and wine, An­ge­lo's, for pas­ta fare. Add to that cre­ole-style Irie Bites, Frankie's and El Pecos. There was a pave­ment lime prac­ti­cal­ly at every street cor­ner along the mile-long stretch, which starts at the Princess Eliz­a­beth Home from the west and ends near French Street. Ari­api­ta Av­enue has be­come the new St James, the town that sup­pos­ed­ly nev­er sleeps.

Po­lice were out in full force on the night be­fore the hol­i­day, rep­ri­mand­ing or charg­ing mo­torists who were parked at cor­ners, is­su­ing breathal­yser tests and check­ing bars and restau­rants to en­sure they had the ap­pro­pri­ate li­cences. Sand­bar, a bar and lounge, lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of Ari­api­ta Av­enue and Ana Street, was forced to close its doors af­ter it was re­vealed in court that it was op­er­at­ing with­out a liquor li­cence since April 1. A choice of new places to lime is good for pa­trons and busi­ness own­ers. And hell for many res­i­dents who live in close prox­im­i­ty to these es­tab­lish­ments. The dra­mat­ic trans­for­ma­tion of the av­enue in the last five years is caus­ing much ten­sion be­tween res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers. Each group is try­ing to de­fine its own space and claim their right to be there.

Liv­ing Hell for res­i­dents

Res­i­dents com­plain that the open­ing of bars and restau­rants in the area has cre­at­ed un­wel­come be­hav­iour. A fe­male res­i­dent in her 50s, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said she has lived in Wood­brook all her life and that the in­tol­er­ant be­hav­iour has grown worse in the last eight years. "It's the type of busi­ness which sprung up in the area that was at­tract­ing the neg­a­tive el­e­ments of the night life, which is chang­ing the cul­ture and re­defin­ing the av­enue," the res­i­dent said. "These open air pubs have en­cour­aged pa­trons to uri­nate on our walls and streets, lit­ter our walls with their beer bot­tles, park and block our gate­ways and are ver­bal­ly abu­sive when we ask them to re­move their ve­hi­cles," the res­i­dent said. Crime in the com­mu­ni­ty has al­so in­creased. "A res­i­dent of Al­fre­do Street was re­cent­ly held up by ban­dits as she was dri­ving in­to her gate­way. This is our sad re­al­i­ty that we face on a reg­u­lar ba­sis," the res­i­dent said.Res­i­dents say that want­i­ng to live in peace and qui­et is not un­rea­son­able. "We would like for the night­clubs to en­close their es­tab­lish­ments with prop­er fa­cil­i­ties for the pa­trons and pro­vide park­ing as well."

She said res­i­dents would like to get more sup­port from the po­lice to con­trol un­ruly be­hav­iour and for the au­thor­i­ties to re-in­tro­duce wreck­ing ser­vices, as this will go a long way to main­tain or­der. New­er busi­ness­es have sprung up to join the likes of Veni Mange, Jacque­line's, Melange and Nu Pub, each want­i­ng a share of peo­ple's dis­pos­able in­come. Lev­els, Shak­ers, Co­co Lounge and More Vi­no cater for the young pro­fes­sion­als, the hip, the fash­ion-con­scious. Many of the bet­ter known places are at cor­ners: Cro­bar and Co­co Lounge-owned by Ronald Moses-are on Car­los Street; Stu­dio, is on Luis Street, and La Ha­bana, on Al­fre­do Street. They have added a dif­fer­ent di­men­sion to en­ter­tain­ment in west Trinidad. No longer are pa­trons re­strict­ed to drink­ing and lim­ing in­doors. The par­ty, the lime, now spills out on­to the side­walk and road­way. Mo­torists slow down to stare at all the ac­tiv­i­ty, much as they used to along the West­ern Main Road in St James. Cars are parked on both sides of Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

Where all spots are tak­en, mo­torists want­i­ng to lime veer off to side streets in search of park­ing spaces. Loud mu­sic booms from sound sys­tems in cars. Most bars play their own mu­sic, though not as loud. On a typ­i­cal week­end, lim­ing on Ari­api­ta Av­enue starts off as an af­ter-work Fri­day lime. Whether you like a cold beer or a daiquiri, the Av­enue is the place to be, said a male pa­tron lim­ing out­side La Ha­bana. It was min­utes to mid­night and he had now ar­rived with a three-mem­ber all-male crew. The lime had just start­ed. The pa­tron said the Av­enue was no longer a place for the up­per ech­e­lon in so­ci­ety, but one where peo­ple of all class­es can hang out. He said that kind of so­cial evo­lu­tion was good be­cause the av­enue can now en­cour­age all types of busi­ness­es to op­er­ate.

Pros­ti­tu­tion resurges

More busi­ness­es, more peo­ple so­cial­is­ing: the per­fect en­vi­ron­ment for the pros­ti­tu­tion busi­ness.

One res­i­dent said pros­ti­tu­tion has been on the in­crease; this in an area his­tor­i­cal­ly known for at­tract­ing the world's old­est pro­fes­sion. Res­i­dents are see­ing more scant­i­ly-dressed women show­ing up on Car­los and Mur­ray Streets in par­tic­u­lar, fight­ing for turf. Groups of threes and fours con­trol the cor­ner spots. Their pimps are usu­al­ly parked near­by, watch­ing mo­torists dri­ve up seek­ing the women's favours.

Some pros­ti­tutes can be seen near Me Asia, a Chi­nese restau­rant, though they keep a low­er pro­file than their com­peti­tors on Car­los and Mur­ray Streets. A Busi­ness Guardian team wit­nessed two pros­ti­tutes pelt­ing bot­tles and stones over turf at the cor­ner of Car­los Street. An­oth­er pros­ti­tute jumped in­to a new mod­el beige Toy­ota Corol­la. "Even though we try to ig­nore a cer­tain de­mo­graph­ic, the ho­mo­sex­u­als and trans­gen­der in­di­vid­u­als have their own place to par­ty," the res­i­dent stat­ed.

While this ma­jor thor­ough­fare has be­come a source of re­lease for many liv­ing in or out­side of the area, those who live in and around the hot spots say they are be­ing robbed of their seren­i­ty. Res­i­dents of Wood­brook seem to have Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing-who as­sumed of­fice nine months ago-on their side. He's em­ployed a range of strate­gies to deal with res­i­dents' com­plaints: wreck­ing ve­hi­cles and charg­ing mo­torists $1,300, which At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has since writ­ten to Lee Sing, say­ing the fine was il­le­gal. Lee Sing has said he plans to "pedes­tri­anise" Ari­api­ta Av­enue by rent­ing two car parks, name­ly at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and pro­vid­ing a shut­tle ser­vice from the car park to the Av­enue. Nei­ther res­i­dents nor busi­ness­es own­ers have greet­ed the idea with en­thu­si­asm.

Res­i­dents said while they ap­pre­ci­ate the as­sis­tance from Lee Sing and wel­come his sup­port, they be­lieved that "pedes­tri­an­is­ing" the Av­enue will hold them pris­on­er in their own home. Joshua John­son, man­ag­er of the open-air Sweet Lime restau­rant-sit­u­at­ed be­tween Nu Pub and Ma Pau casi­no-said pa­trons like their own per­son­al space and free­dom and would not ap­pre­ci­ate trav­el­ling on a shut­tle ser­vice with every­one from a carpark. "Pa­trons like their pri­va­cy and would not feel com­fort­able with that arrange­ment. The crime sit­u­a­tion is a big is­sue for them and they will feel more vul­ner­a­ble to these el­e­ments with this kind of arrange­ment," John­son said. John­son said Sweet Lime, which opened 15 years ago and caters main­ly to a ma­ture crowd and tourists, in­clud­ing some Wood­brook res­i­dents, must co-ex­ist har­mo­nious­ly. He said there must be col­lab­o­ra­tion with all stake­hold­ers to have the is­sues of in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing, noise pol­lu­tion and lit­ter­ing, re­solved. Sweet Lime has its own car park on French Street and has par­tial­ly en­closed its sur­round­ings to pro­vide a more se­cure and com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment for pa­trons.

Lev­els caters for a more ur­ban mar­ket that likes to have fun and en­joy a good tast­ing sushi with a twist of lo­cal flavour. The low­er lev­el caters for din­ing and danc­ing while pa­trons can drink and lime up­stairs.

Don Ross, man­ag­er of Lev­els, which opened its doors on­ly six months ago, said he is not in sup­port of un­scrupu­lous pa­trons who break the law and dis­tress res­i­dents. Ross said Lev­els is look­ing for a spot for its pa­trons to park. In the in­ter­im, the man­age­ment of Lev­els has hired se­cu­ri­ty to pa­trol the pave­ments to en­sure pa­trons do not break the law or dis­tress res­i­dents while en­sur­ing their safe­ty. From French Street to Bell­symthe Street, each busi­ness has carved a niche for it­self. In be­tween the new­er restau­rants, bars and pubs are old­er es­tab­lish­ments, like tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty Allyson Hen­nessy's Veni Mange, Mys­tic Hemp, a food out­let, casi­nos, such as Sports­man, Win­ners Club and Di­a­mond, Chi­nese and Ital­ian restau­rants, like Chi­na Dy­nasty and An­ge­lo's, in­sur­ance and ac­count­ing firms, in­te­ri­or de­sign com­pa­nies, and banks and mas camps.

Po­lice pres­ence

Com­pared to the week­end be­fore the four-day East­er hol­i­days, In­spec­tor Williams from Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion and his troops were out as ear­ly as Holy Thurs­day night pa­trolling the Av­enue, con­duct­ing breathal­yser tests, ran­dom car search­es and check­ing each es­tab­lish­ment for their li­cence. Williams and Act­ing Cpl John­son said these pa­trols would be an on­go­ing ex­er­cise. They have al­ready man­aged to stop pa­trons from con­verg­ing on the streets with chairs and oth­er fur­ni­ture. The of­fi­cers said it would be a more dif­fi­cult task to stop pa­trons from stand­ing and drink­ing on the pave­ment. Williams said the own­ers of these bars and pubs have be­gun to co-op­er­ate as loud mu­sic is now rarely an is­sue. The sore point, Williams said, was il­le­gal park­ing. He called on the au­thor­i­ties to rein­tro­duce wreck­ing ser­vices in the area to treat with that prob­lem.

He said 90 per cent of Ari­api­ta Av­enue is now com­mer­cial and every­one has to learn to co-ex­ist.

He said most homes have turned in­to com­mer­cial en­ti­ties and that is the re­al­i­ty. The Busi­ness Guardian asked three guys lim­ing out­side La Ha­bana, for­mer­ly known as the Squeeze, if they felt that the pres­ence of the po­lice of­fi­cers was spoil­ing their fun. One man said, "No, we wel­come the of­fi­cers. It gives us a sense of se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty." An­oth­er pa­tron said the po­lice's pres­ence will acts as a de­ter­rent for all those who park care­less­ly. Asked if they al­so be­lieved that lim­ing on the pave­ment has de­val­ued the sta­tus of the Av­enue, he said, "No, this type of en­ter­tain­ment is not new, it orig­i­nat­ed from Smokey and Bun­ty, but it is just pop­ping up in dif­fer­ent ar­eas."

Read about the eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tion of Ari­api­ta Av­enue in next week's is­sue.