Dear Editor,
During its entire tenure in business Giftland has held an outstanding record of supporting police causes, from items out of budget that are urgently required by the stations, to donations, charity drives and other contributions, including a presentation which was scheduled to deliver 10,000 cloth, washable masks next week valued over $2 million.
It was therefore greatly surprising that on our busiest night of the year that the police unilaterally blocked all traffic from the main road from entering the mall. In its wake thousands of shoppers were stranded, many taxi drivers were denied access, children waiting for their parents, shop owners awaiting their pickups, pregnant women all had to make the long trek out to the access road and beyond as parking was not available and thousands of road users were inconvenienced by the unilateral and callous disregard for any sort of cooperative effort to enforce the curfew in a way which would have avoided this.
Commander McBean could simply have contacted us and arrangements could have been made to close the doors at 9.30 PM manned by police officers if they wished, without causing all this confusion and discomfort which blocking up the access road caused. This leaves the Giftland Group pondering how it will view any partnerships and further assistance to the police, as calls were made higher up the ladder to no avail. In fact, assurances by a top senior officer that the block would have been removed did not happen.
The cruelty and disregard to the public leads me to believe that the culture within the Police Force needs to be reviewed, this is not how one builds confidence or partnerships with this high- handed arrogance displayed on Christmas Eve.
Yours faithfully,
Roy Beepat
Chairman
Giftland Group
