MONTEGO BAY, St James — Determined to cauterise crime in the volatile community of Granville, St James, Councillor Michael Troupe (People’s National Party, Granville Division) has reintroduced the much-anticipated social event, Granville Night Out.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer West after the event’s staging on Emancipation Day, Councillor Troupe said the community activity has been “tried and proven to work in the past with the commitment of the residents”.

“Granville Night Out is a way of bringing the different communities in the division together. When we had Granville Night Out for four consecutive years, we had no major incidents such as break-ins because we held the residents together,” Troupe said.

“We had vendors coming in to do their selling and one of the things they committed to was that every month we would have Granville Night Out and their part was to report to the police or anybody in authority once there was an uprising in crime. We held them to that.”

“So once they did their part, we did our part and for those four years Granville was basically crime-free. We specifically arrange the return of Granville Night Out for this Emancipation Day to represent us emancipating from the crime in the Granville Division,” he added.

Pointing out that Granville Night Out is a street dance with purpose, Troupe reiterated that the event has previously promoted peace and unity in the usually eruptive community.

“This is not just any street dance, it is a street dance with commitment from the residents. The commitment is that the people from the area will be the community police and if they hear of any impending violence they will report it and we will try and solve that problem before it turns into a gun fight,” he told the Observer West.

” The people love it. We had people from all over St James coming to Granville Night Out. We are hoping to rekindle the love, we are also working to include sports-related activities as well.”

The recent staging of Granville Night Out has been hailed a success, the councillor stated.

“Based on what I saw, the residents are hungry for community entertainment. This was the first time in four years since we held a Granville Night Out and we had over 350 patrons lining the sides of the road. They have already started calling for more, so we are going to use entertainment and sports to tame the crime in Granville,” he noted.

“The police were there. We had them patrolling from the start of the event until it ended and they were pleased. As a matter of fact, the DJs did not even use any indecent language throughout the entire event. It was pure clean fun. I personally requested that they do not use indecent language and they delivered on that,” Troupe added.

It is not clear why the event was last held four years ago but the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic would have undoubtedly impacted its staging.

Granville resident Clive Lottery was beaming with pride when the Observer West met up with him in his community recently. The man, who is a taxi operator, said the event was appreciated by every patron.

“A long time mi nuh enjoy myself like that in Granville. Trust me, it was a bomb. We really needed this back in the community. This will help to get the younger people in the community together to show love and it is just good when we can all just have fun and enjoy ourselves in unity,” he said.

“The love was there, but trust me, based on the one that was held last night [Emancipation Day], we are going to be all right if it continues like that. Everywhere I go people are talking about the Granville Night Out, so I know we are going to get more support for the next event.”

Efforts to get a comment from the police on the staging of the event were unsuccessful.

Over the past year there has been a spike in murders and other crimes in the violence-plagued community, resulting in calls from residents and stakeholders for measures to be put in place to stem the blood-letting.

— Rochelle Clayton