Falmouth cries out for resort status
Published:Friday | June 18, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Sheena Gayle, Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The Trelawny police are handcuffed by the reluctance of the Government to officially designate Falmouth a resort area, a failure which could stymie tourism development that is well under way for the parish.
While Falmouth is located along the north coast, the absence of resort status thwarts effective security management and thus gives free rein to tourist harassers, cops argue.
"I have worked in Negril for many years, and it is so much better there in terms of enforcement. Here (Trelawny), you will arrest a man for possession of ganja and the fine is $100. In Negril, it can be $10,000," Superintendent Linette Williams-Martin told a Gleaner Editors' Forum at Breezes Resort and Spa in Trelawny on Wednesday.
Jamaica already has four designated resort areas: Negril, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Port Antonio.
Falmouth and its environs fall victim to illicit activities along the shorelines that border resort properties. The issue is a sore point for Williams-Martin, commanding officer for the Trelawny Police Division, and stakeholders within the parish's tourism sector.
The alarm bells ring five months before the largest cruise ship, Oasis of the Sea, will dock at the historic Falmouth Port on December 1.
Richard Bourke, president of the Trelawny Chamber of Commerce and general manager at Breezes Trelawny, is also concerned about the effects of illicit activities on tourism.
"Trelawny has unauthorised vendors who come on to the foreshore of the beaches and offer to sell items to tourists that are legal and illegal and, when the police are contacted, there is very little action that can be taken," explained Bourke.
"Even when the police catch them in the act, the penalties are so small that it is almost not a deterrent."
He charged that if the problem was not addressed quickly, the multibillion-dollar developments that are expected to propel the parish as a tourist destination "will become overrun with pimps and touts and will (hurt) tourists' experience".