Thursday, March 28, 2024

Smells awful in Ham Cutter Alley

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VENDORS IN HAM CUTTER ALLEY – an area between the General Post Office and the Princess Alice Bus Terminal in Bridgetown – are pleading with authorities to restore access to the men’s bathroom facilities there.

They lament that the pungent odour of urine has taken over the area.

Stephen Streeks, owner of Dusk To Dawn Bar, said it had been over a month since an out-of-order sign had been placed on the men’s bathroom and the gate locked.

“Over 600 people use the women’s bathroom on any given day. On evenings I does see children coming, but because they see men coming out of the bathroom, they does turn around. Then you have men who don’t want to use the bathroom, because it is a women’s bathroom, and going behind the bathroom to urinate,” he told the DAILY NATION.

Adding that he believed the issue had been reported, he said some workmen had come, dug a hole and two days later the men’s bathroom had been locked.

While there were five cubicles in the women’s bathroom, the toilet for the disabled had been pulled out of the wall. In another, the door was off, two were open to the public, and the other locked for use by the custodian.

Peter Savoury, who frequented the alley, said the problem was beginning to be overbearing.

“Big people going in there, stooling and wiping the faeces on the wall. How can people go in the bathroom and do these things? The people that go in the bathroom don’t want to go in there to those conditions, so they come out and go behind the canteens,” he charged.

He said it was also a health hazard since most of the canteens sold food.

“When you come to somebody canteen to buy food, and you smell urine and faeces, you not going to buy. These people out here sell food and drinks. It is big men and women doing these things. This is nonsense and it needs to stop. I am appealing to the public, the people who use the facilities, to please desist from doing it,” he cried.

Similarly, fisherman Omar Bourne, who works in the fish market across the highway, said it was unclean that men and women had to use the bathrooms at the same time.

“Why it is that the men and the women have to use the same facilities? When the men in the bathroom, the females shunning. The men using the bathroom and breaking up the toilet seats. They have children using those toilets too. The majority of these canteens out here are run by women, so it look bad that women have to use these same facilities and they dirty,” he said.

While repeated efforts to reach Alex Linton, director of the Transport Authority under whose remit the facility fell, were unsuccessful, new Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic said he was not aware of the situation.

However, he promised to send someone to investigate the issue and have a more comprehensive report on the matter by the end of the week. (RA)

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