SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine – The Portmore police, in what they said was a response to persistent complaints from residents of that St Catherine municipality, swooped down on the infamous Port Henderson Road hotel strip last week, arresting 32 people, 17 of whom were prosecuted for breaches of the Spirit Licenses law.

The police also said that 15 hotel operators were warned and given time to regularise their business.

Police said they have been receiving complaints that the strip was a haven for prostitution, gun running, drug peddling, illegally operated hotels and night clubs which were contributing to noise pollution.

According to Superintendent Terrence Bent, who is in charge of the police’s St Catherine South division, hotels must be licensed and registered with the Jamaica Tourist Board. He said that hotels operating along the Port Henderson Road were not licensed.

Resulting from the raid, Bent said the police have brought in immigration officers to advise hotel operators how to legalise their hotels, and instruct them how to keep registers required under the law, which must be examined by police and/or immigration officers regularly.

He said night clubs, bars and other places selling liquor must have spirit licences.

The two-mile-long Port Henderson Road, popularly referred to as the ‘back road’ is littered with over 45 hotels and brothels which the police say provide a sanctuary for prostitution and other illicit trade.

“We have received numerous reports of illegal, illicit and immoral activities in that area,” Superintendent Bent told the Sunday Observer. “Reports range from open prostitution, club owners harbouring young girls to perform sexual acts in the clubs, loud music, drug peddling, gun running, brothel operation, selling liquor without licences, operating clubs and hotels without licences and club operators luring young girls from the country areas to work as prostitutes and so on. So these are some of the breaches we are looking at.”

These are serious offences that the police will not allow to downgrade the community, said Bent. “The police will not allow it, so we are moving with all the powers we possess to cripple this trend which, from the look of things, seems to be taking root.

Therefore, I am warning owners of brothels and illegally operated hotels to heed the law and get regularised, because we are cleaning up, we are cleaning up.”

“We intend to bring back sanity and discipline for the decent, law-abiding residents in Portmore,” said Bent.