Falmouth moves to nip tourist harassment in the bud

BY HORACE HINES Observer Staff Reporter

Thursday, April 07, 2011

FALMOUTH, Trelawny - TOURIST harassment has reared its ugly head in Falmouth where the newly constructed shipping pier has been facilitating cruise vessels, including Oasis of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship.

And the town is moving swiftly to protect itself.

Mayor of Falmouth Colin Gager said he was informed during a meeting last week with representatives of the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and the Port Authority of Jamaica that cruise passengers were bitterly complaining of harassment from vendors.

"It was brought to my attention by both Royal Caribbean and the Port Authority that visitors were making a lot of complaints and were returning to the ship because of harassment," Gager told the Observer West.

That triggered a meeting in the Falmouth Town Hall Monday evening between the Trelawny Parish Council (TPC), a number of craft vendors and scores of other stakeholders.

During the stormy meeting Gager revealed that the craft vendors, most of whom were already registered with their local craft vendors association, would be required to register with the TPC to enable them to ply their trade in Falmouth whenever ships are in port.

"Craft vendors have been registered through their craft associations but the system had been so loose that you have people who weren't legitimate craft vendors been registered," Gager declared.

He added: "There were common labourers registered as craft vendors and wearing identification cards. That is what led to the breakdown of discipline and the harassment started".

Among the number of persons who were allegedly harassing tourists in the historic town, Gager noted, were craft vendors from St Ann and St James, the two parishes flanking Trelawny.

To stamp out the incursion of vendors from outside the parish, Gager revealed that registration would be restricted to Trelawny-based craft vendors only.

"To qualify craft vendors must have a valid identification card, TRN, proof of recent address and they must be TPDCO trained if not we will provide training for them," the Falmouth mayor said.

The chairman of the TPC said the council had taken those steps as the local authority vested with the powers to regulate selling on the roads in the town.

"We are just enforcing the rules and regulation of the local authority," Gager pointed out.

If the craft vendors register by tomorrow (Friday) the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) will foot the cost of $2,000, the mayor revealed. However if they miss the deadline they will be required to pay $2,500 to register.

Yesterday the Observer West noticed craft vendors queuing up outside the gates of the offices of the TPC to get registered.

The mayor revealed that between 20 to 25 craft vendors will be allowed to vend in Water Square on a rotation basis, while 75 will be allowed on the pier on a cruise ship's arrival.

Yesterday, president of the Trelawny Art and Craft and Entertainment Association Joy Laesch threw her full support behind the TPC's initiative.

"It is a good thought by the parish council in regulating and controlling intruders from the other parishes. We needed to have this control because we would have lost the business opportunity here in the parish," Laesch said. "It was so good to go outside there this (yesterday) morning and see things in order. No harassment, the police did a good job," she added.

Yesterday, like Tuesday when cruise ships arrived at the pier, the police were seen in their numbers throughout the seaport town.

Last week Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett warned residents of Trelawny against the threat of tourist harassment even as he challenged them to capitalise on the business opportunities accompanying the arrival of cruise ships.

"The one thing that will destroy Falmouth as the potentially best cruise port in the region is harassment. I want to ask my friends in the media to noise it abroad that harassment is the single most debilitating disease in the cruise industry...indeed in tourism. Because harassment signals a feeling of insecurity on the part of visitors and leads them to feel that they are unsafe," Bartlett said.

"Even if hard crimes are not around (there is a problem) if the soft crime of harassment is there," Bartlett told the Rotary Club of Falmouth.

"People want to move around, feel free to spend and they will spend but they want to feel at ease to do it. They want to have a painless attraction," the tourism minister said.

"Falmouth's transformation can become (reality only if) the people of Falmouth develop the capacity to abstract the wealth that the ships (passengers) are going to bring ... But in doing so I want you to recognise the importance of restraint and care and caution too. And temper your energy and your exuberance with a little patience because everything will not happen overnight," Bartlett said.

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Falmouth moves to nip tourist harassment in the bud