HERE we go again.

Another round of bellyaching about conditions and activities at the People’s Arcade in Montego Bay.

The latest lamentation in this sordid drama series comes after a raid at the arcade last Thursday by the police. Superintendent Eron Samuels, who is in charge of operations in St James, tells us that what the authorities have seen there warrants them calling in the Child Protection and Family Services Agency

The environment, he said, is not safe and ideal for children.

All this is not new. In November 2015 Mr Steve McGregor, who at the time was the commander of the St James Police Division, described the arcade as “a ticking time bomb”.

“We have murders being committed over here, robberies, rapes — even prostitution. Everything that you can think about that has to do with illegality and criminality, it happens here,” Senior Superintendent McGregor told us at the time, and warned that there could be a dramatic increase in criminal activities in Montego Bay if illegal activities there were not curtailed.

He said that the police conducted weekly raids of the arcade and each time they found people from Clarendon, Kingston and other parishes living there in deplorable conditions.

“The people who come from Kingston to ply their trade in prostitution say this is the cheapest place for them to get a place to rent,” he said.

Joining Mr McGregor was the chief public health inspector at the St James Public Health Authority, Mr Lennox Wallace, who bemoaned the unsanitary conditions at the arcade and accused vendors and residents who occupy the close to 500 shops at the rodent-infested facility of disposing their human and solid waste in the drain.

Also expressing concern at the time was Mr Dave Allen, chairman of the People’s Arcade, who said that it had fallen into a state of disorder and posed serious public health and security challenges.

In March this year Mr Allen complained that the water supply to the arcade had been disconnected for more than three years, and blamed the St James Municipal Corporation for failing in its obligation to ensure that the facility had water.

“The water supply is in the name of the St James Municipal Corporation because it was the parish council who put us over here in the first instance. They gave us the water, so we did not have any sort of individual meter for water,” Mr Allen told this newspaper.

Mr Allen was also critical of the Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC), which owns the property, accusing it of failing to address the issues plaguing the people who live and operate businesses in the arcade.

However, Mr Donald Harrison, CEO of the JRC, said they have been trying to “regularise” the business operators in the arcade. He, too, noted that the occupants of the facility were placed there by the parish council many years ago, and as such the people there “do not have any status with the railway corporation — they are just there”.

Mr Harrison also told us that although there have been efforts to assist the business operators the JRC has been unsuccessful in doing so due to a lack of participation. That, he explained, is the reason for the lack of water and electricity at the arcade.

This is one big mess, created in 1996 to restore public order by removing vendors from the streets, but which was obviously not done properly.

It will be difficult for the authorities to effect change at the arcade as people have been occupying the space for more than 20 years. However, the situation needs correcting as people should not be living in the conditions described.