Several small business operators in the Corporate Area have had to close their doors because of gun violence. Many of them are now scared or too frustrated to reopen. Those who are still operating have had to incur additional costs as it relates to both staff and property.

Brazen attacks heating up crime hotspots

■ Reduction in major crimes little comfort to some who fear criminals no longer have boundaries

■ Crime unravelling social fabric of communities

■ Calls for comprehensive public health approach as criminals shutter small businesses

9 Apr 2023/Corey Robinson Senior Staff Reporter corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com

 

“A comprehensive public health approach to reducing crime and violence is required. This approach is necessary to successfully reclaim the affected areas and all of Jamaica.”

“We created something that we didn’t have the capacity to handle later on, and so to a great extent we are reaping the fruits that we planted.”

THE SHUTTERED Happy Corner Bar at the entrance to August Town in St Andrew stands as an eerie reminder of what once was.

Believed by some to be haunted by the ghosts of its victims, even the caretaker of the premises on which it sits stays far from the building where seven persons were shot, five fatally, in January 2018. The incident was reportedly linked to gang rivalry in the area.

After cleaning the blood-splattered floors and walls, the doors to that once bubbly watering hole have remained padlocked, caretaker ‘Mr Mack’ told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

“You know, it is since the other day that I started going around to the back of the bar? I honestly think duppy is in there,” chuckled the elderly man.

Years later, the eeriness still haunts that section of the yard, he said.

The bloodbath at the Happy Corner Bar is one of many that have left several residents saddened, as decades of crime continue to unravel many small businesses that were once an intimate part of the social fabric of their communities.

Too many that became entwined in the history and tradition of their locale have been forced to relocate or pull down their shutters indefinitely because of criminals.

Last week, seniors related the demise of once thriving establishments in areas such as Red Hills, Waltham Park, Spanish Town and Hagley Park roads in the Corporate Area, and over in Portmore, St Catherine.

Crime has reduced many locations to a fraction of their glory days – bars, meat shops, wholesales, restaurants, clubs and liquor stores among the victims.

“A whole heap of people got shaken up because of it; even me because I was up there little before I came down and the barrage of gunshots started. People still talk about it,” Mr Mack shared, recalling the gloom it brought the owners.

Today, the property, located next to The University of the West Indies, Mona, is occupied by cobwebs and so, too, are a few rooms that usually housed students. The COVID-19 pandemic that followed, coupled with the grizzly murders, were just too much for the owners to deal with, he said.

“It is not that people wouldn’t want to rent it, but that won’t happen. The owners have no interest in renting it out again,” he said.

BUSINESSES ARE PAYING THE PRICE

Michael Leckie, president of the Small Business Association of Jamaica, said the “crime monster” is growing bigger each day, and whether from providing additional security, relocating or closing shop, businesses are paying a steep price.

“With the advent of extortion and the crime monster, we are feeling further impact as a business community. A number of restaurants and bars have been employing assistance with packing up and making sure that staff reach home safely, but those are additional costs,” he decried, describing a sector barely staying afloat due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is all very challenging for some operators. A number of them have scaled back or have had to close, and these are people who would have made significant sacrifices over the years,” he said.

‘STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN’

The owner of the popular Tender Bites Restaurant in Ackee Walk, off Molynes Road in St Andrew, is among the latest hit with the crime dilemma.

For 17 years the restaurant was a favourite spot for locals and passersby alike in the community, but it was forced to close its doors after a holdup late last month left one of the staff members nursing gunshot wounds.

“I have bills to pay and I can’t finance myself right now because the place is just locked down with gunshots. My worker just came out of the hospital. His shoulder needs pins and doctors said that is more than $100,000,” fumed the operator.

Now, the operator is contemplating the future, believing that the restaurant may have been the target of a robbery.

“I’ve been there too long for them to try to hurt me, and I don’t think this was done by anyone from a far place. So I’m giving it a little break,” he said.

He is minded to relocate the business, which residents told The Sunday Gleaner had been a catalyst for growth in the usually hard-pressed, gang-torn area.

“It is just like starting all over again. You have to just try and build back at a different location,” he continued in disappointment.

Today, a building at 66 Mannings Hill Road, St Andrew, that once housed the El Mundo sports bar where operator Iciline ‘Rosie’ Tamasa was peppered with bullets as she sat last July, is being renovated as part of expansions of a fast-food outlet.

Almost a year later, vendors in the area still question her killing as they honour her memory. She was a popular figure in the area, they charged, and her death was believed to be linked to the deeds of a relative who was reportedly involved in lottery scamming.

Her elder brother can still feel the loss of his sister every time he looks across the road from a car park he frequents. Last week was no different.

“She was over there for about 30 years, and a man can’t say that she did trouble them,” said her brother who asked not to be named.

ENERGY NO LONGER THERE

In Portmore, St Catherine, ‘Coolers Ends’ in Southboro has not been the same since fruit vendor Robert ‘Willy Redz’ Reid was gunned down by hoodlums two months ago. Police say he may have been killed for witnessing a murder more than a year ago.

As relatives made preparations for his funeral last week, his longtime customers walked past dried coconuts on a tree with strings on which he would normally hang pineapple for sale.

“The place has not been the same since Willy died. Trust me. The energy that used to be here is no longer here and even his customers, old people who use to buy jelly water for years, just can’t believe he is gone. This corner used to be lively, now as night come people gone inside,” moaned one of Reid’s friends.

COMMUNITIES NEGLECTED

According to Professor Christopher Charles, it is not surprising that establishments in or near inner-city communities have closed or scaled down their operations because of crime, in particular homicidal violence.

“These communities have been neglected since 1962 when the British granted us political independence. The people in the inner city have been ignored and marginalised. Moreover, we have failed as a country to address the conditions – dysfunctional families, schools and communities – that create criminals, in particularly killers and their uptown backers,” the political psychologist charged.

“The violence that have disrupted the operations of these popular community spots are a natural outgrowth of failed anti-crime polices over many decades. These policies are buttressed by the grand national delusion that the consistently incompetent politicians that we elect every five years can achieve significant reduction in homicides and other crimes. If these politicians performed the same dismal way in other vocations, they would have all been fired!”

Charles, a professor at the University of Missouri who is on leave from The University of the West Indies, Mona, noted, “I see the American government through its embassy in Kingston is now a major supporter of the grand national delusion by offering training to the security forces to dismantle the gangs.

“At first glance this looks good. However, a deeper look will reveal that if we only go after the gangsters and ignore the conditions that create them, we are leaving the gangs’ feeder system in place. Therefore, the problem will continue.”

He told The Sunday Gleaner, “We must always go after the gangs, but a comprehensive public health approach to reducing crime and violence is required. This approach is necessary to successfully reclaim the affected areas and all of Jamaica.”

REAPING WHAT WE SOW

Sociologist Dr Orville Taylor believes the nation is now reaping what it sowed, having long cultivated a generation who developed a love affair with the gun, which became the legacy passed on to subsequent generations.

“The decay of the social fabric has been going on for a while. A big part of that happened sometime during the 1970s, and maybe even earlier. But as we got to the point of garrison politics, the base of that was the rule of the gun,” he explained to The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.

“It is a similar formula when the mongoose and the cane toad were introduced to get rid of a particular pestilence, which tipped over the social order. So you can’t get rid of the mongoose or cane toad anymore, they are now endemic.”

The sociologist continued, “We created something that we didn’t have the capacity to handle later on, and so to a great extent we are reaping the fruits that we planted.”

“Remember, for garrison politics it was very clear that whoever had ascendancy in a community, that individual at some point reported to the political directorate. I predicted long ago that ultimately these garrison type gangs would develop a kind of independence to such an extent that it would become totally out of control,” Taylor said.

“In a word, the seeds were planted many years ago with the garrison politics and the love affair with the gun and we raised an entire generation that went on to raise another generation that was in love with guns and violence, and that has become the norm.”

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