Business as usual at Hellshire

Claude Mills, Staff Reporter

THERE'S JUST no stopping them. Some of the vendors whose shacks were destroyed by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) in a pre-dawn raid at Hellshire Beach on Friday, created new structures from the remains and yesterday conducted business as usual.

At least eight of the vendors were back selling on the beach, defying the UDC's removal notice.

"Mi haffi try if only for the sake of my kids, they have to go to school tomorrow," said Joy Graham. "I spent $1,500 to get somebody to build up this so I could do business, but it not working out, I don't make much from morning, so mi no sure how dem a go reach school."

Others echoed similar sentiments.

"A lot of my regular customers come and gone home back. They seemed disturbed and angry by what has happened, and it just cut dem vibes so they have gone back home, or somewhere else, we are suffering," said Paulette Brown, Secretary of the Hellshire Fishermen's Co-operative.

The Co-op is calling on the Councillor and the Member of Parliament to hold a meeting this week and to intercede to reach some amicable agreement, she said.

Miss Brown, who accused the UDC of lying, said, "we are not destroying the environment of the beach, no mangrove grows where we are, the UDC is lying."

On Friday, the UDC bulldozed 16 structures along the beachfront from Seaforth to Halfmoon Bay in St. Catherine because the area is environmentally sensitive, and had become severely stressed as a result of encroachment and erosion over the years. The vendors received notice on May 19 to remove by May 27.

The removal does not relate to the Halfmoon Bay fishermen with whom the UDC says it is in dialogue for the development of the area.

Yesterday, in that section of the beach, goats were seen scampering amid discarded plastic bottles, litter and the brownish-black skeins of dead sea weed that had washed up on shore. The board, thatch and zinc remains from Friday's demolition exercise were also still on the beach.

Many of yesterday's beachgoers were supportive of the vendors.

"It was very unfair and high-handed how the Government went about this. They ought to set up a system whereby the vendors can pay for use of the beach, and still be able to earn money," said Juleen Hamilton-Jones, a Jamaican-born US resident who was on vacation. "But because a lot of tourists don't really come to Kingston, and by extension to this part of the South Coast, they don't care," she said.

"This public beach is filthy, there are no sanitary conveniences, yet they talk about the environment when they know that people live, work, and come to enjoy this beach. It is ridiculous," Mrs. Hamilton-Jones continued.

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