KINGSTON, Jamaica – Members of the public who enjoy frolicking at the Bob Marley Beach and fisherfolk who make their livelihood there are reportedly in danger of losing access to the popular Bull Bay, St Andrew waterfront after adjoining lands to the beach were sold to facilitate the construction of a hotel on the coastline.

Attorney-at-law Dr Marcus Goffe, who is representing the Jamaica Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM), which is supporting families who reside on the lands, says he has taken legal action to put a brakes on the development.

“Yes, I have filed a claim in the Supreme Court of Jamaica yesterday (Thursday) and we are hoping to get a judge this morning to hear the case to get a stop order and injunction to prevent any demolition of any property and so forth,” Goffe told OBSERVER ONLINE.

“It’s wrong, and, so, I’m saying definitely, any which way it goes, these things will be taken to court for further actions to be taken against those who are doing this injustice. If they proceed to go today and ignore the families and people’s rights down there, it will be all over the court, national and international media because Bob Marley Beach is one of the most iconic beaches in the entire Jamaica and the Caribbean. We cannot let it go like this,” he said.

Bob Marley Beach is located at the border of the parishes of St Andrew and St Thomas in the eastern end of Jamaica. A beautiful black sand beach, it was reportedly renamed Bob Marley Beach by late Rastafarian elder Gladstone ‘Bongo Gabby’ Stephenson to honour Bob Marley after the reggae legend’s death in 1981. The beach was reportedly one of Marley’s frequent stomping grounds.

The families that are living on the affected lands adjoining the beach are said to be descendants of Stephenson and Vince ‘Macka’ Thomas, both original members of the community.

In a release on Thursday, Goffe said the lands were sold to Woof Group Limited in 2019 to construct a hotel.

Arguing that the closure of the beach will dispossess long-standing Rastafari families who have resided on the adjoining lands for over 50 years, Goffe told OBSERVER ONLINE that the culture of scraping people off their lands in Jamaica is a criminal act and an assault on defenseless citizens.

He compared the Bob Marley beach crisis to the recent land debacle in the Greater Bernard Lodge development area in St Catherine, claiming that there is a culture of “homelessness and landlessness in Jamaica.”

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“This action is totally illegal and unlawful. It’s intimidation, which I think are also threats and criminal acts, and, so, it’s a total assault on the defenceless people down there,” he said.

“This is a flashpoint; this is something that we have been seeing in Jamaica for centuries. I’m saying that enough is enough. There must be a time in which we can have the line drawn to say that these continued actions are totally inimical to an independent, free majority black state. That cannot be a system of justice that is fair, transparent and that is protective of the people’s rights,”

He added: “Honestly, after Clifton in Bernard Lodge, people feel empowered to scrape people off of their lands because they see the government doing it. So, this is the culture in Jamaica, watching people get homeless, being dispossessed and become landless, while the country says it’s making money from tourism and development.”

However, Information Minister Robert Nesta Morgan told the Jamaica Observer that “The Government has not given anybody any permission to restrict access to the (Bob Marley) beach or take over the beach”, saying that the administration was left puzzled by the allegations.