MARTIAL arts tournament promoter and security expert Jason McKay is keeping an eye on the crime wave in western Jamaica, primarily Montego Bay, where his organisation, the Jamaica National Martial Arts Association, is set to host the 2018 International Sports Kick-boxing Association Amateur Member Association World Championships.

McKay and the Jamaica Taekwon-Do Association hosted the International Taekwon-Do Federation World Cup at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in 2014, attracting more than 2,000 athletes and supporters to the second city.

However, he fears that if recent measures taken by Government to stem gang and lottery-scamming related murders in the parish are not maintained, Montego Bay will be a hard sell to visitors, and sports tourists in particular.

“I have made bids on championships that I have won only on the image of Montego Bay. I have also lost as many that I have bid for Kingston, for the same reason,” he pointed out.

A district constable with a background in fighting gangs in the once-volatile South St Catherine police division, McKay has agreed with Prime Minister Andrew Holness that calling a state of emergency in Montego Bay would be tantamount to pressing the panic button, sending the wrong signals, especially as it relates to the island’s tourist industry.

However, he believes parliament should re-introduce a limited version of the Suppression of Crime Act in affected areas.

In a tumultuous period, in 1974, the Suppression of Crime Act and the Gun Court Act were enacted. The Suppression of Crime Act allowed the police and the military to seal off neighbourhoods and searched houses for weapons without requiring a warrant.

“A state of emergency is not suitable as it would not fit our tourism product and would result in travel advisories against the island,” said McKay, pointing to the potential damage any such move would have, especially in martial arts circles where families travel with competitors, often children, to tournaments all over the world,” said McKay.

He argued that he supported the prime minister’s views, but added that if the murders re-emerge, “the image of Montego Bay will be destroyed, followed by the economy of the city and that of the country, which depends on tourist arrivals”.

Whereas curfews were implemented following a tour of affected areas by Prime Minister Holness, McKay said the violence was too widespread and that method would be “impossible” to effect and maintain in a region with tourism as its mainstay.

“It can be controlled if the power is to detain known gang members indefinitely, while the act is being enforced. These powers would be limited to the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Area One, and above, and impact only known gang members,” he emphasised.