by Bruce Raine
The cruise ships are pulling out of Nassau and we are surprised ! Bay Street merchants have been telling successive Governments for years that downtown Nassau has degenerated into a dump, a slum, a shanty town. And we are surprised?
Cruise ships are, no more, nor no less, than any other business and when product demand disappears, the business owner must change his business strategy or close up shop. We are collectively blaming the cruise ships because that is far easier than addressing the real problem, which is the product that we offer. Bay Street shopping has been the preeminent destination attraction, for cruise ships visiting Nassau these many years and we have collectively allowed this attraction to degenerate into a dump. Efforts have been made, particularly by the private sector, to arrest and reverse the problem, but, at the end of the day, there are key aspects of a revitalization that requires Government action. Successive governments (PLP and FNM ) have given lip service to these responsibilities but it has never been more than that - lip service.
We have, for better or worse, determined that our tourism market would be drawn from what I would call “Main Street America”. Main Street America is no longer the inner cities of America and this former population has moved away to the suburbs because they don’t like and will not tolerate filth, drug dealers, pan handlers and the like. Yet we think that we can offer them exactly such on their hard earned vacations. Where are our brains?
Despite much talk and discussion, the Jitneys, spewing their diesel exhaust all over town, are still a part of the Bay Street scene. As the transit hub of the island, Bay Street is invariably inundated by the national labour force, and school establishment, trying to get home each day. Main Street America is not used to this and most of its citizens are intimidated, if not disgusted, by hordes of marauding people. Like it or not that’s a fact. And, if the Jitneys’ diesel is not enough, we have the massive diesel container trucks lumbering through downtown all day every day because we are too stupid to rearrange the Bay Street traffic flow. Americans for the most part today don’t smoke cigarettes, yet we expect them to inhale our uncontrolled diesel emissions? Its not going to happen!
Where are the police, who used to be so visible on Bay Street many years ago. Nowhere to be found, and so the drug dealers and pan handlers just flourish unfettered.
Of course there has been much talk of our straw market, formerly a key Bay Street attraction, but now a rat infested ghetto. In Main Street America this tent-city would have been closed and condemned as a health and safety hazard six months after its establishment. But we think that these people will visit this hell hole nonetheless?. Its not going to happen!
And we, perhaps fortunately, have suddenly discovered that the former charm of downtown, the old buildings, are now derelict or have been torn down. Yes, these were the things, the history, that Main Street America used to come to see. Do we wonder why Harbour Island is such an attractive and successful destination ?. Quant little houses, built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but still in pristine condition, tell the vivid story of a bygone day. Did we think of this when we bulldozed the Royal Victoria Hotel?
And, as our Bay Street merchants and their staff, gasp for their final financial breath of the year, we barricade the town with vulgar chain link fencing, and blockade the interior with metal bleachers so that our people, not Main Street American visitors, can enjoy their cultural heritage of Junkanoo. Well, you can’t eat Junkanoo, and it ain’t going to buy you a single ounce of grits.
We have, unfortunately, become what Main Street America is not, and until the governments of the day realize this simple fact and take the appropriate action to change the status quo the cruise ships and their passengers are not going to be visiting li’l Nassau for a long time to come.
The author is president of International Private Banking Systems. Visit their web site by clicking here.
