Starlite says its parking lots are for elderly and other customers

Gail Alexan­der

Star­lite Group Lim­it­ed (SGL) has made it clear that cones be­ing used in its Diego Mar­tin phar­ma­cy's car park are in­tend­ed to en­sure its park­ing spaces re­main avail­able for cus­tomers, par­tic­u­lar­ly el­der­ly per­sons and those with lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty who need con­ve­nient ac­cess to the phar­ma­cy's en­trance.

This comes af­ter Min­is­ter of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der ver­bal­ly at­tacked the es­tab­lish­ment's man­age­ment and own­er on Mon­day, call­ing for a "boy­cott" of the busi­ness.

Alexan­der, in a vit­ri­ol- and in­vec­tive-laced out­burst di­rect­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly at Star­lite Group Ltd man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ger­ald Aboud, took is­sue with cones the es­tab­lish­ment had placed in park­ing spaces re­served for phar­ma­cy cus­tomers. He fumed about "De One Per­cent".

Alexan­der said peo­ple were al­so vis­it­ing a gym on the com­pound, which rents space from Star­lite Shop­ping Plaza (SGP). He claimed that when the drug­store closed, park­ing spaces were re­served for phar­ma­cy cus­tomers and cones were placed in those spaces. Alexan­der de­clared that he would al­ways be an ac­tivist, "...Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter or not!"

How­ev­er, the man­age­ment of Star­lite Group Ltd, a ten­ant of SGP, de­fend­ed the place­ment of the cones in its park­ing lot. The group is­sued a no­tice stat­ing: "Fol­low­ing a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, we would like to clar­i­fy why cones are placed in cer­tain park­ing spaces out­side Star­lite."

"Gym pa­trons and work­ers from a near­by con­struc­tion project have been us­ing our cus­tomer park­ing, re­duc­ing the spaces avail­able to those vis­it­ing the phar­ma­cy. The cones help keep these spaces avail­able for Star­lite cus­tomers, par­tic­u­lar­ly el­der­ly cus­tomers and those with lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty who need con­ve­nient ac­cess to our en­trance."

Aboud al­so said: "I'd say that for a long time Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der has been dis­parag­ing peo­ple's good name and rep­u­ta­tion, as well as at­tack­ing mi­nor­i­ty groups and cit­i­zens in this coun­try."

He added: "I'd say that if Mr Alexan­der is to gain the trust of the peo­ple, he needs to start act­ing re­spon­si­bly. I will al­so say to Phillip that there is no en­e­my out there, oth­er than 'the en­e­my with­in'."

He said Alexan­der's rant, be­cause he had to walk a few ex­tra steps to the gym, was dis­turb­ing and dis­gust­ing.

"And I'd say that right now, this coun­try needs more uni­ty if we are to over­come the chal­lenges that face us," he said.

Alexan­der's ac­tions have al­so drawn dis­ap­proval and back­lash from Star­lite cus­tomers, per­sons in the busi­ness sec­tor and oth­ers.

Some crit­i­cised Alexan­der's con­duct and his role in Gov­ern­ment, while al­so tak­ing aim at the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion over cur­rent na­tion­al is­sues. An­oth­er de­scribed Alexan­der's ac­tion as un­prece­dent­ed and ques­tioned the con­duct of a UNC Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, who was "cam­paign­ing against a pri­vate en­ter­prise over a park­ing space."