The law­less­ness con­tin­ues in the cap­i­tal city of Port-of-Spain with le­git­i­mate busi­ness op­er­a­tors, on the re­ceiv­ing end, feel­ing the full brunt of the young law­break­ers' "ag­gres­sion and sav­agery."

Busi­ness own­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those on Char­lotte Street, are be­ing threat­ened and bul­lied by in­di­vid­u­als who have been cre­at­ing hav­oc in the city.

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud said while mem­bers of his as­so­ci­a­tion have been try­ing to up­hold the law and sur­vive post-COVID, those with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Port-of-Spain re­main "dis­tract­ed, dis­con­nect­ed" and with agen­das.

Char­lotte Street is the cheap­est and busiest shop­ping des­ti­na­tion in north Trinidad and at­tracts thou­sands of shop­pers. How­ev­er, due to the in­creas­ing crime lev­el, pa­trons have been ex­press­ing con­cerns for their safe­ty.

Mean­while, Aboud said they have not been re­ceiv­ing a favourable re­sponse from the au­thor­i­ties and the sit­u­a­tion has been wors­en­ing.

Gregory Aboud

He said the Char­lotte Street sub­com­mit­tee of DO­MA has been com­plain­ing about the brazen­ness of crim­i­nals who have been break­ing in­to the de­liv­ery vans bring­ing goods to stores.

"Busi­ness peo­ple are re­port­ing that they have been threat­ened for try­ing to bring de­liv­er­ies to their busi­ness places. That sort of ac­tion falls with­in the am­bit of the law­less­ness that is cre­at­ing hav­oc in the city of Port-of-Spain. I would like to sug­gest that the sit­u­a­tion has been spin­ning out of con­trol be­cause those with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the city of Port-of-Spain are dis­tract­ed and dis­con­nect­ed.

"And they are dis­con­nect­ed be­cause they ap­pear to have ze­ro in­ter­ests in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers. They are in­ter­est­ed in pa­tro­n­is­ing a num­ber of stake­hold­ers, but al­most seem to ex­hib­it a type of hos­til­i­ty to the in­ter­est of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty."

Last week, Aboud said, he re­ceived a call from a Char­lotte Street busi­ness­woman who com­plained that she had asked for the front of her place to be cleared since she had goods to of­fload but was told "'they (the ven­dor) com­ing to set up on that spot and no­body can't park there right now.'"

One store own­er said il­le­gal and le­gal ven­dors sell on the street and pave­ment, ob­struct­ing pedes­tri­ans, shop­pers and busi­ness own­ers.

He said the il­le­gal ven­dors sell when they want and would threat­en and hurl ob­scene lan­guage at own­ers when they are asked to clear the front of their es­tab­lish­ment for goods to be de­liv­ered

"They would have a knife to fright­en them with," the busi­ness own­er added.

In the last two weeks, the own­er said, at least five de­liv­ery trucks were bro­ken in­to and goods stolen from their trays.

"They would break the trucks to steal cash. Goods are al­so pil­fered when the dri­ver goes to make a de­liv­ery."

One ban­dit was picked up on a sur­veil­lance cam­era break­ing in­to a van and this was re­port­ed to the po­lice.

Apart from rob­bing the trucks, the own­er said, there are pick­pock­ets and rob­bers are grab­bing jew­el­ry and snatch­ing purs­es.

Last week, in the glare of the pub­lic, a ban­dit grabbed a gold chain and hand band from a two-year-old child who was in the com­pa­ny of a woman.

File: Delivery men offload goods on Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

"The ban­dit did not run af­ter snatch­ing the jew­els, but ca­su­al­ly walked away. This tells you how brazen and bold they have be­come," one ob­serv­er said.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, a ban­dit yanked an el­der­ly woman's purse while she was pay­ing a ven­dor.

"There were al­so about six to sev­en snatch­ing of purs­es and mon­ey be­cause the city po­lice are sel­dom around. The crim­i­nal el­e­ments have no­ticed that and they are hav­ing a field day com­mit­ting their crimes. It's like an or­gan­ised net­work."

Ear­li­er this year, the busi­ness own­er said, there was a spate of armed rob­beries which re­sult­ed in a high­er po­lice pres­ence af­ter they met with act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hind.

'Il­le­gal ven­dors have more pow­er and rights'

An­oth­er busi­ness own­er said the ven­dors seem to have "more pow­er and rights" than le­git­i­mate busi­ness op­er­a­tors.

"They would cuss me up while of­fload­ing goods as if they own the pave­ment and road. To avoid that, I had to move to suit. They are very abu­sive and dis­re­spect­ful to us. What can we do?"

A busi­ness­woman said sev­er­al own­ers got a taste of "the ven­dors' acidic tongues" and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens would keep their dis­tance.

"Some­thing has to give," she added.

Oth­ers have been break­ing the vend­ing rules with re­spect to what days and times they are show­ing up. "Tents are be­ing erect­ed on both sides of Char­lotte Street, which vi­o­lates the rules that were giv­en," Aboud said on Thurs­day.

In ad­di­tion, he said, tents are erect­ed on In­de­pen­dence Square.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 81 reg­is­tered ven­dors are au­tho­rised by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion to ply their trade on Char­lotte Street on Thurs­days, Fri­days and Sat­ur­days.

Just last week, DO­MA is­sued a press re­lease stat­ing that Port-of-Spain, like the rest of the na­tion, has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing its fair share of crime.

"We have a record of hor­rif­ic abus­es that oc­curred in the city in the past two weeks, which have been mind-bog­gling in their ag­gres­sion and sav­agery. The city sit­u­a­tion, like the na­tion­al con­di­tion, is law­less­ness that is re­lent­less and bold­faced. The law-abid­ing are be­ing tram­pled up­on, and their rights con­tra­vened in broad day­light," the re­lease stat­ed.

The re­lease al­so point­ed out the cap­i­tal city was suf­fer­ing a so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­cline.

DO­MA not­ed that safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty ranked at the top of all known mea­sure­ments of qual­i­ty-of-life in­dices and con­tribute di­rect­ly to con­sumer and in­vestor con­fi­dence. How­ev­er, this has not been the case for them.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to his con­cerns, Aboud said the city's po­lice de­part­ment ramped up pa­trols in and around Fred­er­ick and Hen­ry streets while ig­nor­ing bustling Char­lotte Street and the east­ern side of In­de­pen­dence Square, where there is a con­tin­u­a­tion of risk for shop­pers and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

"We have not been re­ceiv­ing any re­sponse...the Char­lotte Street sub­com­mit­tee of this as­so­ci­a­tion has been com­plain­ing about the break­ing in­to vans (de­liv­ery), the break­ing of vend­ing rules with re­spect to what days and times they are show­ing up. Tents are be­ing erect­ed on both sides of Char­lotte Street, which vi­o­lates the rules that were giv­en," Aboud said on Thurs­day.

In ad­di­tion, he said, tents are erect­ed on In­de­pen­dence Square.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 81 reg­is­tered ven­dors are au­tho­rised by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion to ply their trade on Char­lotte Street on Thurs­days, Fri­days and Sat­ur­days.

Aboud said that ne­glect and dis­con­nect seem to ex­tend to the New­town/Wood­brook ar­eas as well, where hon­est pro­pri­etors and own­ers con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to pay­ing tax­es, health sur­charges and NIS con­tri­bu­tions.

"And those who are not in that sys­tem of con­tribut­ing to the le­gal re­quire­ments of the Gov­ern­ment's tax­es and con­tri­bu­tion seem to have the up­per hand, and we are con­tin­u­ing to be faith­ful to the cause of try­ing to keep busi­ness alive in Port-of-Spain.

"And the ques­tion of the law­less­ness and the crime emer­gency that we re­ferred to last week is not on­ly in­tend­ed to at­tract the at­ten­tion of the au­thor­i­ties, but al­so in­tend­ed to alert mem­bers of the pub­lic about the need for their vig­i­lance re­gard­ing the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of their busi­ness­es and safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of their fam­i­lies."

Joel Martinez

May­or Mar­tinez: I will in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter

Aboud said he wants to be­lieve that "City Hall is aware of the chaos that is go­ing on."

But, Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez said he was un­aware of ven­dors not con­form­ing to the rules, shop­pers be­ing robbed and break­ing of ve­hi­cles.

"I have not been in­formed of such."

Mar­tinez said if such in­for­ma­tion was re­layed to him, he would have in­ves­ti­gat­ed the mat­ter.

"First of all, I would have to ask the (city) po­lice what their pa­trol sched­ule is like on Char­lotte Street."

Mar­tinez said whether you like it or not, in a city these things (crime) hap­pen.

"We don't want it to hap­pen, but they do."

As for the ven­dors, Mar­tinez said, he would en­sure they are placed "dif­fer­ent­ly on the street. I spoke in a meet­ing about that to­day. First of all, they should not be block­ing the pave­ment."

The May­or said the pitch­ing of tents on In­de­pen­dence Square is not al­lowed.

"If that is the case, then the po­lice are not do­ing their job."

He ad­mit­ted that every so of­ten il­le­gal ven­dors would hawk their goods, but the po­lice would get them out.

"I don't want il­le­gal vend­ing to be in­fil­trat­ing the reg­u­lar vend­ing."

Mar­tinez said if DO­MA would like to have an in­creased po­lice pres­ence, all he had to do was ask.

Aboud re­called for­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Murchi­son Brown telling the coun­cil and burgess­es there would be no mob rule in the city of Port-of-Spain. "We hold on to the hope that we could have that sort of strength of lead­er­ship...the city needs it and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is be­ing pushed around bad­ly at the mo­ment, and we are very con­cerned about the fu­ture," Aboud added.