Ellis: Digitise approval process for party applications
Published:Saturday | July 15, 2023 | 12:08 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
SENIOR SUPERINTENDENT of Police Vernon Ellis, the commanding officer for the St James Police Division, believes that consideration should be given to digitising the approval process for applications for parties and other social events in the parish, so as not to inconvenience party planners and promoters.
Ellis made the recommendation on Thursday while presenting the police department’s report during the monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation [StJMC], where he addressed concerns that the police’s reported slowness in responding to permit applications for social events oftentimes result in the permits not being ready by the date of an event.
“I will look a little further in how we can tidy this part up, and we will see what measures we can put in place to reach out to everybody in the sector and get everybody comfortable. I think we should tidy up these archaic ways in which we do these applications, get them electronically and get people responding to them electronically,” said Ellis.
“Somebody sends you a paper application, and they come to you for a paper response, when they could know at the touch of a button that, based on what is happening, a generic response will tell you not to go ahead and do this investment at this time. It is a system that requires some overall workout to make it work,” Ellis added.
In response, Montego Bay Mayor and Chairman of the StJMC Leeroy Williams agreed that there must be a review of the approval process for applications for parties and other similar events.
“From the municipal corporation’s perspective, the concern that we have is, sometimes, the length of time that the police take to respond to persons seeking permits. I think that is an area we will have to look at, because people have to make their preparation, and it is going to affect them when, on the spur of the moment, they are told the event cannot be held,” said Williams.
Both men were speaking ahead of the annual staging of the Reggae Sumfest music festival in Montego Bay, which will be held from July 16 to 22. The StJMC had previously announced that Montego Bay would be recognised as ‘Sumfest City’, with advertisers to promote that slogan from May 31 to July 23.
ENTERTAINMENT ZONE
On the matter of Montego Bay as an entertainment hub, Ellis recommended that a structured entertainment zone should be established in Montego Bay in order to better secure the safety of patrons at social events.
“Suggestions have been made that we should look at something like an entertainment zone, because the entertainment aspect of things is very important. We are having the enhanced security measures, which trump everything else we are doing…and I have seen where, in other parishes, other major events are taking place and persons are being injured,” said Ellis.
“We are growing as a destination, the demand is there for it, and we should look at how security features can contend with what the people actually want,” Ellis added.
“You cannot have these events thrown all over the place in the middle of some battle zones and in places where everybody wants to be going at each other,” he stated. “I think we should look at this zone as the future of the St James division.”
In 2018, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett announced that Montego Bay would be the site for Jamaica’s first entertainment centre, which would enhance the local tourism and entertainment industries. The development of the centre was slated to begin that year for completion in 2020, with the design and preparatory work to cost $50 million.