FETE FALLOUT

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Sev­er­al ma­rine and tourism-re­lat­ed busi­ness­es in Ch­aguara­mas have been forced to close dur­ing this week’s in­ten­si­fied Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing the se­vere traf­fic con­ges­tion linked to the Stink and Dut­ty fete at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by Ma­rine Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MSATT) pres­i­dent Jesse James, who said at least 40 busi­ness­es were forced to shut down on Sat­ur­day due to the traf­fic snarl re­lat­ed to the event. He said busi­ness own­ers have de­cid­ed it is bet­ter not to op­er­ate than to face more se­vere in­con­ve­nience with oth­er events planned in the penin­su­la be­fore Car­ni­val cul­mi­nates on Mon­day and Tues­day next week.

James said the scale of dis­rup­tion has reached a point where some busi­ness own­ers now plan an­nu­al clo­sures from the Fri­day be­fore Car­ni­val straight through to Car­ni­val Mon­day, cit­ing un­cer­tain­ty, staff ac­cess is­sues and re­peat­ed fi­nan­cial loss­es.

“Yes­ter­day’s (Sat­ur­day) event showed where this penin­su­la was ac­tu­al­ly grid­locked — shut down!” James said.

“Busi­ness­es were not open­ing be­cause staff couldn’t get there, reser­va­tions had to be can­celled, and there was re­al un­cer­tain­ty about whether op­er­a­tions could func­tion at all.”

James, who rep­re­sents the ma­rine busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty op­er­at­ing in Ch­aguara­mas, de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “a hor­ri­ble scene” that he said should not be re­peat­ed.

“Busi­ness­es ac­tu­al­ly shut down. I spoke to a cou­ple of our mem­bers just be­fore this in­ter­view, and many of them have al­ready de­cid­ed that dur­ing Car­ni­val, it just doesn’t make sense to op­er­ate. The work­ers sim­ply can’t get down here,” he said.

He said the grid­lock af­fect­ed the en­tire penin­su­la, with restau­rants, sales out­lets, mari­nas and boat­yard op­er­a­tions all grind­ing to a halt.

James al­so high­light­ed the im­pact on res­i­dents Down the Is­lands, not­ing he al­so had dis­cus­sions with the Is­land Prop­er­ty Own­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, whose mem­bers live on the off­shore is­lands and re­ly on ac­cess through Ch­aguara­mas for dai­ly life.

“There are peo­ple liv­ing on the is­lands who op­er­ate nor­mal­ly — they have to bring their chil­dren out for lessons on week­ends, get sup­plies and han­dle emer­gen­cies. Yes­ter­day, they couldn’t even get off the is­lands. Noth­ing moved,” he said.

He warned that the con­ges­tion posed se­ri­ous safe­ty risks, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the penin­su­la’s lim­it­ed road ac­cess.

“This is a one-way-in, one-way-out sit­u­a­tion,” James said.

“There are places where you can’t pull aside for an emer­gency ve­hi­cle. You ei­ther hit the sea or the moun­tain. If emer­gency ser­vices had to re­spond from in­side Ch­aguara­mas, it would have been ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult.”

Is­land Prop­er­ty Own­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Yohann Govia shared the sen­ti­ment, but added that the dis­rup­tion of busi­ness­es dur­ing this Car­ni­val week will have a di­rect fi­nan­cial and so­cial cost for more than 200 res­i­dents who de­pend on busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing with­in the penin­su­la for every­day goods and ser­vices.

“As a re­sult of what hap­pened, res­i­dents now have to tran­sit to Port-of-Spain or ar­eas like Barataria just to get sup­plies,” Govia said.

“That is an ad­di­tion­al cost to them, and we are cit­i­zens just like every­body else in Trinidad. We should be able to ben­e­fit from ba­sic goods and ser­vices with­out be­ing so dras­ti­cal­ly af­fect­ed.”

He added, “I know a lot of peo­ple were strand­ed and couldn’t run their dai­ly er­rands, and there were al­so med­ical emer­gen­cies. To get in and out of the penin­su­la took hours. Con­duct­ing busi­ness was ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult.”

The fall­out ex­tend­ed to ma­rine and tourism-re­lat­ed busi­ness­es, with at least one ma­ri­na un­able to open on time be­cause staff could not reach their work­places.

“Some had to come by boat; oth­ers had to walk. The en­tire penin­su­la was a night­mare. It af­fect­ed every­body,” Govia said.

While reaf­firm­ing sup­port for cul­tur­al and en­ter­tain­ment ac­tiv­i­ties, Govia stressed that in­ad­e­quate plan­ning un­der­mines the abil­i­ty of res­i­dents and busi­ness­es to func­tion.

“We sup­port the ac­tiv­i­ties, we sup­port our cul­ture. But we must be able to co­ex­ist. Busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity and res­i­dents’ ac­cess to ser­vices can­not be sac­ri­ficed,” he ex­plained.

He point­ed to a sim­i­lar event held about two weeks ear­li­er, not­ing that bet­ter plan­ning pre­vent­ed dis­rup­tion.

“They had the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture in place, park­ing was or­gan­ised, and there were shut­tle ser­vices by boat,” Govia said.

“Every­thing ran smooth­ly, so we know this can be done.”

Govia is now call­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive traf­fic man­age­ment plan and mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers ahead of fu­ture events on the penin­su­la.

James stressed that the ma­rine sec­tor is not op­posed to Car­ni­val events but is call­ing for bet­ter co­or­di­na­tion and plan­ning.

“We are not say­ing to shut down Car­ni­val or stop the events,” he said.

“There must be a sym­bi­ot­ic re­la­tion­ship. Prop­er con­sul­ta­tion with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty, pro­mot­ers and se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies is need­ed.”

He warned that host­ing mul­ti­ple large-scale events si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in the penin­su­la is un­sus­tain­able and dan­ger­ous, not­ing re­ports of peo­ple at­tempt­ing to leave the area il­le­gal­ly by sea with­out prop­er safe­ty mea­sures.

“Peo­ple were try­ing to get out on pirogues with­out life jack­ets. So much hap­pened that could have led to se­ri­ous dan­ger or loss of life,” he said.

James sug­gest­ed al­ter­na­tive venues and trans­port strate­gies for events of this mag­ni­tude, not­ing re­ports that at­ten­dance at the fete was close to 18,000.

Care­nage res­i­dent DJ Ryan seemed not to be both­ered by the traf­fic sit­u­a­tion.

“Well, look, this kind of thing does hap­pen some­times in life. Car­ni­val is the time when the bulk of peo­ple come out to en­joy them­selves. Hon­est­ly, I even feel Car­ni­val should be twice a year, be­cause it changes the whole at­mos­phere.”

He added, “I’ve trav­elled to plen­ty coun­tries and it’s dif­fer­ent, but noth­ing feels like home. When we get this op­por­tu­ni­ty, peo­ple just come out in their num­bers.”

James said the as­so­ci­a­tion is seek­ing ur­gent di­a­logue with all stake­hold­ers to pre­vent a re­peat of what oc­curred.

“We don’t want to fight with any­body,” James said.

“We want to find a way for­ward where Car­ni­val, busi­ness­es and res­i­dents can co­ex­ist safe­ly and re­spect­ful­ly. But there must be prop­er con­trol, plan­ning and law and or­der for events of this scale.”

Sails Restau­rant was one of the es­tab­lish­ments that re­mained closed yes­ter­day, cit­ing se­vere traf­fic con­ges­tion in Ch­aguara­mas fol­low­ing the Stink & Dut­ty Car­ni­val event at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port the day be­fore.

In a state­ment is­sued to pa­trons on Sat­ur­day evening, the man­age­ment said the lev­el of traf­fic dis­rup­tion ex­pe­ri­enced af­ter the fete was “far be­yond what any­one ex­pect­ed,” de­spite plans to open at 2 pm, four hours af­ter the event end­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, ac­cess routes in­to and out of Ch­aguara­mas re­mained grid­locked for sev­er­al hours well in­to the af­ter­noon, mak­ing it im­prac­ti­cal for both staff and cus­tomers to reach the restau­rant safe­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.

“With sev­er­al oth­er events sched­uled for Sun­day, and af­ter to­day’s ex­pe­ri­ence, we be­lieve it is in the best in­ter­est of both our cus­tomers and our team to take the day,” the state­ment said.

The Stink and Dut­ty Fete had pre­vi­ous­ly been held at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba but or­gan­is­ers were forced to move to Ch­aguara­mas due to the Gov­ern­ment’s ban on the use of ma­jor sport­ing venues for Car­ni­val fetes.

At­tempts to con­tact event pro­mot­er Kwe­si “Hy­pa Hop­pa” Hop­kin­son were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day, as calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.

Guardian Me­dia al­so tried con­tact­ing Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin for a com­ment on the lat­est de­vel­op­ment but calls to her phone went unan­swered. Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.