Judge urges jet ski operators to consider other locations

STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A High Court judge has asked jet ski op­er­a­tors in To­ba­go to con­sid­er lo­ca­tions out­side Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park to so­lic­it clients and launch their wa­ter­craft.

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing this morn­ing be­tween the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and jet ski op­er­a­tors, Jus­tice Sher­lanne Pierre said Pi­geon Point can­not be the on­ly op­tion avail­able.

On April 23, the THA was grant­ed a tem­po­rary in­junc­tion ban­ning jet skis from Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park and Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park. The pro­hi­bi­tion fol­lows the fa­tal jet ski ac­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point on April 8 that claimed the life of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie.

Re­spond­ing to a query from the judge about why Pi­geon Point is their pre­ferred lo­ca­tion, de­fen­dant Kelvin Jer­ry said "99 per cent of vis­i­tors" are present there.

Jer­ry said vis­i­tors would ap­proach them to ask about their ser­vices or they would walk around ask­ing beach­go­ers if they were in­ter­est­ed in rid­ing a jet ski.

Pierre ac­knowl­edged the busi­ness mod­el used by op­er­a­tors for close to two decades but ad­vised them to mod­ernise the in­dus­try.

The judge said, "That was 18 years ago, we are hav­ing this dis­cus­sion in 2026.”

"There are so many oth­er ways to so­lic­it,” the judge point­ed out, adding that “most per­sons who come to To­ba­go plan their trip, most per­sons use so­cial me­dia plat­forms."

She not­ed op­er­a­tors can cre­ate an app, use Tik­Tok, Face­book and even part­ner with ho­tels to of­fer pack­ages.

"If you al­ready have the cus­tomers that broad­ens your op­tions. If you have the cus­tomers, you don't have to launch at Pi­geon Point."

She added, "For 18 years the same ap­proach has been made, but the world has moved on."

At­tor­ney Saman­tha Law­son, coun­sel for the jet ski op­er­a­tors, not­ed there is a safe­ty el­e­ment to be con­sid­ered as well.

De­fen­dant Alexan­der Phillips said the shel­ter pro­vid­ed by Pi­geon Point is not of­fered by oth­er lo­ca­tions.

"I do­ing jet ski about 16 years now and safe­ty is the pri­or­i­ty. The wa­ter does change by Store Bay and Swal­lows; it does get re­al bad for safe­ty for our cus­tomers," he said.

How­ev­er, the judge chal­lenged the de­fen­dants, say­ing: "The on­ly shel­tered or calm area in To­ba­go can­not be on­ly one spot."

Saman­tha Law­son, coun­sel for the de­fen­dants, ar­gued that Store Bay is on the At­lantic side of the is­land while Pi­geon Point is in the Caribbean Sea.

How­ev­er, both beach­es are on the Caribbean Sea.

"Pi­geon Point lends it­self to a bet­ter mar­ket," Law­son said.

Pierre replied, "For­give my ge­og­ra­phy, Pi­geon Point is the on­ly beach on the Caribbean side?"

Law­son said Swal­lows Beach is al­so on the Caribbean side, but it was too shal­low for moor­ing and dis­em­bark­ing.

"Have a look at it," Pierre said. "When we have been in one spot do­ing things the same way for al­most 20 years, any­thing dif­fer­ent looks wrong, bad and dif­fi­cult."

The mat­ter was ad­journed un­til 1 pm to­mor­row, with par­ties asked to make oral sub­mis­sions be­fore a de­ter­mi­na­tion is made on main­tain­ing the in­junc­tion.

At­tor­ney Christlyn Moore rep­re­sent­ed the THA.