Last Thursday night January 7, I witnessed the dismantling of the outdoor cafe and corresponding plants that were used as décor – the property of Hugh ‘Magic’ October. The laws of the city have to be upheld, but not conveniently; there must be an amicable dispensation of the law that provides courtesy and fairness before the crude power play is implemented. But in the case of ‘Magic’ I witnessed an act of malice; it was most painful to see the kicking down and ripping apart of the potted plants that constituted the props, which were then thrown into a waiting vehicle like trash. Magic’s cafe did not encumber the pavement. He took up the space that would have been allotted to his business anyhow for parking purposes; the permanently filthy city drain connecting the pave and the street was covered with wooden plates that gave the feeling of a terrace, and these wooden plates were collected by a city council employee whom I know well, and who while he threw the plates into the vehicle was uttering some nonsense about this happening because he had not used a grille to cover the drain. What is peculiar is that Mr October had long complained to me of getting hassles from some businesses close by, and had even been asked when he was going to sell his place. His business was awarded in 2005 as one of the twenty businesses on Regent Street for proper sanitation practices and listed in the Tourism Directory. His concern in the current matter is that he was not even sent a warning letter advising removal.
The irony of this incident is that while nothing should seem wrong with the removal of an illegal structure, when leaving the scene I passed the city council crew parked at the corner of Alexander Street in a celebrative mood in the company of some unsavoury characters that had joined them. Less than a hundred yards away in Alexander Street, however, was another such extension with many suspicious reminders of structures which had been popular and had once occupied this plot of land, and which are still there. I proceeded to make a record of my observations while I walked home. As I arrived at the Constabulary Outpost that was the old Labour Bureau back when I left school, I could see that this location had been clogged up and water logged for the longest while; the area has an odour. Next, on the pave bordering the old colonial burial ground as well as along the eastern side of Bourda Market are dozens of Guyana’s destitute, sleeping and whatever. Across the road over Orange Walk, still on Regent Street, is a filthy free-for-all dumpsite – always filthy, always there. The drains all along the way are filled with rubbish and still are as you read this letter. I walked up to Light and Regent Streets and looked at a building being constructed there; they have taken in the pavement in the construction. On some streets in Georgetown there are no pavements; vehicles triple park, and pedestrians have to compete on the road with vehicular traffic. The several hundred junkies who dwell on our streets are no one’s responsibility.
It does cause one to ponder how such an organized operation for the simple assumed transgression of Mr October came into being, and what were the undercurrents that motivated Mr October to keep repeating a mantra while they destroyed his concerns that “I ent paying nobody.” I also observed two female foreigners who stood observing in mute silence. How was this operation thrown into place with so much personnel when in every street the Mayor and City Council seem incapable of even keeping the drains clean and all else seem to have collapsed into a free for all? According to a friend in the system it appears to be true that the city council has fragmented into separate hostile entities, caused by the divisive politics that have been cultivated to cripple the authorities there for narrow political reasons. This has left the public open to the negative whims of some, and made it possible for some fragments within that system to now be rented.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
