MONTEGO BAY, St James — The St James Health Department ordered the temporary closure of 25 rat-infested businesses in Montego Bay in April as it employed a zero-tolerance approach to rid the parish of the pests.

“Twenty-five per cent of the food establishments that we checked during the month of April have shown evidence of rodents,” chief public health inspector for the parish, Shericka Lewis, said as she gave her report during Thursday’s monthly council meeting of the St James Municipal Cooperation.

A food establishment is defined as an operation that stores, prepares, packages, serves, sells or otherwise provides food for human consumption. This may include take-out counters in grocery stores, cookshops and food trucks. Lewis did not give a breakdown of the type of establishments being plagued by rats but she said the problem was widespread.

“[Inside] the main commercial districts within the city of Montego Bay, we are seeing a proliferation in rodents,” she noted.

She said there was a problem with rats on Barnett Street, in the vicinity of Charles Gordon Market, St James Street, Sam Sharpe Square, all the way out to Fort Street.

“We are seeing rodents all over, complaints are coming into the health department, and I want us to partner in addressing this growing nuisance,” she urged locally elected officials.

Rodent infestation is not a new challenge for Montego Bay.

In February, during a city hall meeting, St James police chief Senior Superintendent Eron Samuels highlighted damage being done to fibre optic cables by rats gnawing on them. He said the rodents were attracted to waste oil vendors were discarding into the drains.

In 2003, Councillor Michael Troupe (People’s National Party, Granville Division) caused a stir when he hyperbolically said rats were taking taxis within his division.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer after Thursday’s meeting, Lewis said the health department has actively been taking steps to address the rodent issues highlighted in her report.

“We are closing them [food establishments], 100 per cent closure for rodent issues. We have been closing them and they have been coming up to standard,” she said.

“We had one that, based on the severity of the rodent control situation, they were closed for almost three weeks,” Lewis revealed.

However, she said commercial activity was not the only cause of the rat problem.

“In the city, bulky waste is not the problem right now for the rodent problem that we have. It’s just behaviour of persons, [how they] discard their garbage; the night-time vendors, daytime vendors and commuters, persons who are on the road every day,” the health official told the Observer.

“We are seeing where persons are eating their lunch, cooked lunch, and they just throw the bones and the rice willy-nilly on the road, providing food for the rodents,” she added.

During her presentation, she had disclosed that the health services team may soon get some help in this fight.

“A private pest control operator has reached out to the health department and they want to conduct a rodent control programme in the city,” Lewis said.

“I believe that they are looking on the Charles Gordon Market; however, we want to implore them to extend it to other areas such Sam Sharpe Square,” she said.

The work, she said, would happen on Labour Day, a move Mayor of Montego Bay Richard Vernon indicated would be welcomed.