The situation outside of Palm Court on Saturday nights needs regularizing

May 11, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Something must be said about nightlife in Guyana. It is more like morning life. The action gets going around midnight and ends in the wee hours of the morning. People go home at daybreak.
No wonder attendance at religious places is falling off. When you leave a party during the wee hours of the morning, you will most likely sleep all day the next day.
There used to be a time when people started to party early in the night and by midnight were tucked into their beds. Not anymore. The parties are starting later and later.
This late start to nightclub life is encouraging slack behavior amongst young girls. They wait until their parents are tucked into bed around 10 pm and then they get ready to go partying. In many cases, the poor father and mother do not know when their daughter has slipped out of the house. They also do not know when the daughter returns because in most cases she does not return until 4 o clock in the morning.
Daddy gets up at eight on Sunday morning and peeps into his daughter’s room. He sees her sleeping. He mutters under his breath, “ She is tired. She worked hard all week. Let her sleep on weekends.” What he does not know is that she is indeed tired but not from working all week. She is tired from partying while he and mummy were sleeping.
There is also a problem for the traffic authorities because of this late partying. The authorities are not around and therefore people do as they please. Take for example the parking situation outside of Palm Court, one of the city’s top watering holes. There is little provision for parking and so patrons to this nightspot park on the sides of the avenue. The problem is that there are more vehicles that there is parking. Someone came up with the lawless and ingenious ideas of double parking on one side of the road, in other words, two lanes of parking on the same side of the road, occur on outside of Palm Court. This reduces traffic to a crawl since there is only one lane in use.
With such a situation, it is not unusual for accidents to happen. One such accident occurred this past weekend and led to a shooting incident. It is not clear whether at the time there was double parking. But the situation outside Palm Court needs regularizing. Parking in a drive lane should not be allowed. Those in charge of the business should enter into an arrangement with nearby vacant properties for paid parking so as to reduce the congestion.
But that is only part of the problem. The bigger problem is that because these parties are going early into the mornings, they avoid the scrutiny of police traffic ranks. Obviously there are less ranks on duty and on patrol in the wee hours of the morning.
Interestingly, the police have at times visited other nearby nightspots and urged them to turn off their music at midnight. So far no one has ever heard of Palm Court being asked to do the same. So, this establishment is either lucky or favored.
Other countries have had experiences with the opening of bars and clubs late into the morning. And there has been a system of strict enforcement in some countries, where alcohol cannot be served after a certain time. Those countries have the ability to enforce these rules because people by and large are fearful of the law and tend to comply. Businesses know that they have their licenses taken away if they do not stop selling alcoholic beverages by a certain hour.
Guyana cannot follow same and set any hour by which bars and clubs should stop selling liquor. This will only encourage corruption. What is needed is a different rule.
The only rule that will work in Guyana is to insist that all night spots and clubs close by two am on Saturdays and by midnight on other nights.
This is how it used to be in the old days and there was no need for any enforcement. Guyana should return to those days. It will allow for parties to start earlier and for persons to be tucked in to bed so that they can wake up early the next day.

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The situation outside of Palm Court on Saturday nights needs regularizing

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