Tourism Village destroys boardwalk to thwart court ruling
If you’re sick and tired of hearing about the back and forth over some walls at the Tourism Village, don’t worry, you’re not alone. But between the fight on Fort Street and the deadly violence around the country, I’d at least prefer to start with the war of words instead of bullets. As we hinted last night, the recent legal victory for Brown Sugar and Harbourview in the Supreme Court has been temporarily negated by a move that appears to be rooted more in spite than sense. Janelle Chanona has the details.
Fred Lumor, Attorney, Brown Sugar Marketplace/Habourview Companies
“I was shocked. I’m still speechless. I couldn’t believe the appalling and spiteful temper tantrum I saw with the destruction in the Village.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
That was the reaction of attorney Fred Lumor and his clients this morning as they witnessed not only the partial removal of one of the walls blocking access to the boardwalk … \but the complete demolition of the boardwalk itself. The result is the same as if the wall was never taken down.
General Manager of the Fort Street Tourism Village, James Nisbet, is out of the country but via phone told us that he is following the court’s order to tear down the walls and at the same removing a portion of his boardwalk. “The two are not mutually exclusive”. But today Lumor rejected that claim and insists the walkway is public property under the Village’s contract with the Government of Belize.
Fred Lumor
“The license is that I am allowing you to build a boardwalk on national land on the condition that you pay rent, on the condition that the public will have access to the boardwalk at all reasonable times and also on condition that you will not obstruct in any way the boardwalk. And the order says you remove them in order to give access to these people to passengers on the boardwalk. What they have done is disconnect the boardwalk so they’ll be no access to passengers on the boardwalk. The destruction is a disobedience of a court order and is a contempt and I can assure you, as long as the sun rises and sets, I will make sure that all those who are responsible are held accountable by the court.”
Nisbet is undeterred by Lumor’s claims, maintaining that the F.S.T.V. does pay rent but it’s not for the boardwalk, it’s the right to use the riverbed in front of his property. The Village also seems confident that no one will be able to rebuild the destroyed boardwalk.
Carlos Romero, Owner Wet Lizard (August 13th 2003)
“This is a private property and as such, they are against my rights of free access to the sea and the river.”
In August 2003, Carlos Romero, owner of the Wet Lizard restaurant successfully obtained an injunction against the F.S.T.V. when they tried to build the boardwalk in front of his property without allowing him access.
Dean Barrow, FSTV Attorney (June 26th 2007)
“Clearly the Wet Lizard said, no, no, no, you can’t build in front of my property without my permission and so some arrangement was worked out whereby there was a quid pro quo. In return for the Wet Lizard agreeing that the Village could build in front of them, the Village agreed to access in a controlled fashion to the Wet Lizard by their customers, by the customers, the clients of the Village. So again that was a commercial undertaking where the Wet Lizard had something with which to bargain, something on which there was a platform for a trade; it’s not the same with the current claimants.”
But Riveroll interprets that same case very differently. Like Brown Sugar and Michael Colin Gallery, the Wet Lizard also holds duty free status and therefore is a direct competitor with the F.S.T.V. Riveroll admits Wet Lizard had the leverage of location because it sits between two properties owned by the village but he maintains adjacent properties are entitled to the same rights.
Christian Riveroll, Manager, Brown Sugar Marketplace
“I look at when Brodies and Romac’s were competing on Albert Street; nobody put up a wall to separate. You had a choice. You can go either to Romac’s or the Brodies to go shopping. It’s the same concept. If you want you can go to F.S.T.V., if you want you can come to Brown Sugar. There should be no walls in place. If they want to put up walls, let them put up walls on their fence line inside their property, not on the boardwalk, if that’s what they want to do. But why are they afraid of competition? This is what we’re in, we are in this country to compete. Let us compete.”
Both Brown Sugar and the Habourview companies estimate their losses in revenue in the millions of dollars because they are still denied access to the boardwalk.
Bernadette Egwuatu, Tenant, Brown Sugar Marketplace
“I don’t think we can survive. How are we going to feed our kids? How are we going to pay our bills? We can’t even, we can barely meet our rent sometimes. How we going to survive?”
There are only a handful of tenants renting space at the Brown Sugar Marketplace and at least two told us today that they will have to relocate if the case is not resolved favourably.
Christian Riveroll
“We are fighting to the end, to the bitter end if that is necessary. Yes we are losing money and it hurts us everyday but we have to look forward at what is potentially in the future for us and for us to be successful. We are looking towards that, I mean it’s been frustrating and you just want to give up but we are looking forward and we know that at the end of the day we will be successful in this fight.”
Fred Lumor
“I can assure you, it will not be long. We are at the end of the road. Those who disobey the court order will be punished, period. That is the end of story. If we allow these type of activities to continue we’ll just start resorting to jungle law and there will be a break down of law and order. I will not let it pass.”
Lumor is expected to file contempt of court papers against the Fort Street Tourism Village, the Belize Port Authority and the Attorney General and Minister of Natural Resources tomorrow morning. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
On April eighth Lumor had served both Nisbet and Ports Commissioner Major Lloyd Jones with the Chief Justice’s order, reminding them that non-compliance could result in imprisonment or the freezing of assets. Both men are at a Ports conference in Nicaragua.
