Save Westmoorings... (On the Issue of the Bar Licenses)

While many of Mayor Lee Sing's decisions can be considered controversial, the one with the closing of the bars at midnight is definitely on the side of the angels.

The Law and all it's agencies must first respect the right of the citizens to the peaceful enjoyment of property - specifically and especially their homes, and having a bar anywhere near a residential area was always going to be a problem for residents.

Residential communities are made up of everyday citizens which include children, the elderly and the infirm, and their peace and quiet must be respected and protected by all agencies of the State.

Take Woodbrook for example; Woodbrook is a residential community made up of residential properties under specific, non-commercial stipulations built into their leases.

Everyone who ever opened a business in Woodbrook had to pull a string and many paid bribes to circumvent these restrictions for profit, and this is wrong and ought to be wrong in law and enforced.

For too long now the burden has been unfairly placed on the residents to object to noise and disturbance, when it should have been built on the reverse, where business interests desirous of opening within a clear residential area had to get the 'permission' of their closest neighbors, those most likely to be affected within a one mile radius.

This nonsense argument that Port of Spain MUST grow and Woodbrook is the only place for it to grow is hogwash. East of Port of Spain is the obvious contiguous developmental path for the city, but one thinks business interests are trying to avoid Laventille. If crime to the East is the problem, the solution there is are walls, a moat and possibly manned defenses until we get a Government capable of treating with crime and all its drivers, which, ironically, the wanton destruction of residential neighborhoods is one.

Development remains essential and I am all for planned development, but not at the expense of the destruction of successful communities in the country, and it is this writer's opinion that ALL commercial activity in Woodbrook ought to cease or be shut down and the leases returned to their original intent.

I propose that we further legislate the granting of bar licenses, not to be granted within any residential areas, or within a three mile radius of a church, mosque, temple, primary or secondary school.

The inappropriate and indiscriminate granting of bar licenses is helping no one.

We need to stop playing smart with stupidness; we need to stop destroying our country for profit, and we need to stop taking advantage of our countrymen as we try to make the rules work both ways.

If not, it's only a matter of time before somebody finds a way to open a Smoky & Bunty in Westmoorings.

Something to think about...