SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

The low spec­ta­tor turnout in Port-of-Spain con­tin­ued for yet an­oth­er day yes­ter­day, as the South Quay judg­ing points re­mained vir­tu­al­ly emp­ty.

It was an em­bar­rass­ing mo­ment for Lost Tribe - the first to cross the two judg­ing points down­town at 8.20 am with their pre­sen­ta­tion "2023 We," as there were on­ly 20 spec­ta­tors in the Lord Kitch­en­er Stand and few­er on­look­ers on the streets.

It was ev­i­dent then that mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, who came out in full force, out­num­bered the crowd, on­look­ers and spec­ta­tors.

On Car­ni­val Mon­day, there was al­so just a sprin­kling of spec­ta­tors in the stand.

How­ev­er, Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez de­scribed Car­ni­val Tues­day's rev­el­ry down­town as "awe­some and epic."

Mas­quer­aders from sev­er­al bands ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that they had to pa­rade their feath­ered, bead­ed and se­quined cos­tumes in front of emp­ty chairs.

"For the Moth­er of All Car­ni­vals, we were ex­pect­ing a lot more peo­ple to come out," said Wee Mas In­ter­na­tion­al mas­quer­ad­er Judy Bess.

Chip­ping to the beat of Nailah Black­man and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous' "Come Home" as he crossed the first judg­ing point, Pa­parazzi mas­quer­ad­er Mike Benoit said he was dis­ap­point­ed.

"In all the years I have been play­ing mas, I have nev­er seen the crowd so sparse...it's like a ghost town. You have to ask if Car­ni­val is dy­ing."

La­ga­cy mas­quer­ad­er Sher­ry Hunt held the view that the run­away crime and mur­der rates had chased every­one away from down­town.

"From what I have seen, peo­ple opt­ed to stay in the area they live to en­joy Car­ni­val. I can't blame them."

Ex­ou­sia mas­quer­ad­er Natasha Bethelmy said af­ter a two-year hia­tus due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, they were ex­pect­ing a "ram-out crowd" with droves of en­thu­si­as­tic tourists lap­ping up our great­est show on earth.

"What we saw to­day was a pa­thet­ic turnout."

Dur­ing a walk­a­bout down­town just be­fore mid­day, Mar­tinez at­trib­uted the poor show of spec­ta­tors to traf­fic re­stric­tions by the TTPS and peo­ple stay­ing home to have a "good break­fast."

How­ev­er, Mar­tinez said he was not "wor­ried at all," as the day was still young and he an­tic­i­pat­ed more peo­ple would come out lat­er in the day.

Mar­tinez took com­fort in the fact that "the May­or's Box" at South Quay had been over­sub­scribed.

But the ones who felt the pinch of the poor crowd were ven­dors along Broad­way.

"I ain't come out here for a hol­i­day. I come to make mon­ey and the sales were not what I had ex­pect­ed for this Car­ni­val," com­plained ven­dor Sharon Daniels.

Daniels ex­plained that in years gone, the bands would come down South Quay and turn north on­to Broad­way to head to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for the Pa­rade of the Bands.

"NCC changed the route, so the bands not pass­ing in front of our booths any­more. Ex­cept for the few peo­ple, passers-by, the place re­al­ly dead. It not mak­ing no sense. I am hop­ing for the best."

She said ven­dors on "The Av­enue" had been rak­ing in far more sales than they were. The ven­dors were asked to pay $800 to oc­cu­py the spots from Fri­day to yes­ter­day.

"Yes­ter­day (Car­ni­val Mon­day), I had to throw away a pot of corn soup that did not sell," Daniels com­plained.

Stand­ing be­hind a well-stocked bar, ven­dor Tri­cia Khan voiced dis­plea­sureas she not­ed she bare­ly made a cent.

From op­er­at­ing a prof­itable busi­ness in pre­vi­ous years, Khan said her day's sales had dwin­dled to a mere $800.

"I in­vest­ed so much in this bar. Every­thing fell flat. Hon­est­ly, down­town has been a dis­as­ter," Khan said, shak­ing her head in dis­be­lief.

Yes­ter­day, Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion health in­spec­tors were al­so seen in­spect­ing the ven­dors' booths to en­sure they were ad­her­ing to the cor­po­ra­tion's rules when prepar­ing, cook­ing and serv­ing meals.

Health in­spec­tor Rhon­da Lap­tiste said an in­spec­tion con­duct­ed over the two days of cel­e­bra­tion showed on­ly 70 per cent of street ven­dors had been com­pli­ant with the food for sale process.

Some ven­dors were caught ped­dling food with­out a badge and had to wrap up op­er­a­tions.

"If there are sev­er­al in­frac­tions, we may ask them to not sell or we may seize (their food) as nec­es­sary," Lap­tiste said.

Lap­tiste said the biggest in­frac­tion was ven­dors sell­ing food be­low the re­quired 60-de­gree tem­per­a­ture.