Kali­fa Clyne

The 9 pm cur­few im­posed will cause sub­stan­tial dis­rup­tion for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. So said pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

He said it was ob­vi­ous the cur­few would have a dra­mat­ic ef­fect. "The neg­a­tive ef­fect of these pro­vi­sions, how­ev­er, need to be bal­anced against the ter­ri­ble loss of life that has been oc­cur­ring so fre­quent­ly in the past sev­er­al weeks," said Aboud. He re­flect­ed that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty would need to be pa­tient as they await­ed fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on de­tails of the ini­tia­tive.

Aboud al­so raised con­cerns for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who resided in ar­eas deemed "hotspots". "We wish to high­light the need for dis­cre­tion in deal­ing with the thou­sands of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens when search­es and oth­ers ini­tia­tives take place in these ar­eas," Aboud said. Fol­low­ing an emer­gency meet­ing with mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil on Sun­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in ar­eas deemed as crime hotspots. The state of emer­gency took ef­fect from mid­night on Sun­day. The Prime Min­is­ter said it would be re­viewed dai­ly.