BELIZE CITY, Tues. Dec. 11, 2018– “Nowhere in the Caribbean or in the world, you would have municipalities sanctioning nightclubs, bars, etc. smack in the middle of a recreational center. So that in itself is a situation that is untenable,” Belize City mayor, Bernard Wagner, told the media this morning at a press briefing at City Hall.
The bar in the park is a problem that has returned to the forefront of public discussion in the wake of a weekend shooting incident which claimed the life of a patron and which caused a panic at the BTL Park when bar patrons had to fight their way through the single entrance, a violation of the Fire Department’s safety rules, during the mayhem that ensued when the shooting occurred inside.
Pier 1 Bar is a structure built on stilts above the sea in front of BTL Park, and Mayor Wagner added,” We have our attorneys looking at the matter. We will utilize all the resources that we have at the council. We gave the principals of that business entity enough time to shore up security, to shore up that the people or patrons that visit that facility do so in a safe manner, and they have not really complied.”
The shooting inside the bar which killed Baghdad Street resident, Asher Saunders, occurred despite the presence of police officers who were acting as security.
Mayor Wagner told the media that not only was the bar put there, in the park, during the term of the previous United Democratic Party (UDP) mayor Darrell Bradley, but “Dah wah ill-advised move in my view from the beginning, so the events of last week Friday night clearly are a case where the rooster came home to roost.”
Continuing, Mayor Wagner added, “For some reason or the other, the City Council chose to extend the contract even further, giving them an additional ten-year lease. But this is typical of the UDP City Council. When we go through the books and when we go through unraveling what they did, it is a constant pattern, where you see the giving of long, extended contracts to entities that were friendly to them.”
Pointing to what he described as “UDP corruption,” Mayor Wagner revealed that not only was the leasee of Pier 1 Bar, Joseph Kee, given a ten-year extension on the lease contract, but following Hurricane Earl in 2016, Bradley’s council paid half the cost of the repairs for the hurricane damage to the structure in which the bar is located, amounting to a cost to the council of $16,000.
Mayor Wagner explained that the council was not under legal obligation to have undertaken that payment.
“I’ll go on record with this. Within their current lease agreement, there is an obligation in there which speaks to the fact that the council will not be responsible for any damages to the facility. But we have records, and I have [it in] black-and-white and when I speak, I speak specifically on black-and-white … that the UDP City Council chose to foot half the bill for the hurricane facility repairs. So, we served as an insurance company … only for Pier 1. The damage was $33,000; the council footed $16,000 and I have the black-and-white [for that].
“These are the types of situation … when we have public officials operating without integrity and with clearly, corruption at the center of it,” he said.
Due to the signed lease agreement, the Belize City Council cannot just move in and close down the Pier 1 Bar; the council, however, is committed to addressing the problem once and for all after it consults its attorneys.
Mayor Wagner also pointed to the fact that the council can begin to look at the role it plays in the liquor licensing process. The mayor is an ex-officio member of the Liquor Licensing Board.
“Every year, business entities have to reapply for their trade license, and so, that is something in our arsenal that we can use. We also have the liquor license application that we can look at as well. But we will not stand pat on this matter. This matter has to be dealt with and this council is committed to dealing with this matter once and for all,” he remarked.
“In the interim, we are hoping that the principals obviously would shore up their security personnel. We can’t act until we have gotten our legal opinion on the way forward,” Mayor Wagner said.