For months now, we've been reporting on the consultations with the tour operators vendors, and guides who congregate outside the gates of the Fort Street Tourism Village. The cruise lines, the BTB and the FSTV owners have been complaining about them for the longest time - but, the thing is, there's nowhere else to put them. The idea of the Memorial Park has been floated without any buy-in, and now there's a recommendation to relocate them to the Marion Jones Stadium.
That one hasn't exactly gone down with a spoonful of sugar - and today, the PUP Mayoral candidate for Belize City seized upon it - holding a press briefing to say he stands with the tour guides:...
Bernard Wagner - PUP Mayoral Candidate
"We don't want our tour guides to be relocated at the Marion Jones Stadium, that's a no. We at the PUP City Council want to provide support for the tour guides in this plight that they are currently facing."
Jules Vasquez, Reporter
"You're positioning yourself or your council to get those men's vote."
Bernard Wagner - PUP Mayoral Candidate
"Its politics season you would say, but we take our business very seriously at our council. We take it very seriously and we are always focusing on ensuring that our people get a piece of this pie. It can't be a situation where the tour operators are already behind the fence making their share of the pie. Why now are you going to take away the small amount that is left out there for our people and put them in an adverse situation? That to us is against our policy. We are about the people and even if people would leave here saying politics, well its good politics."
The city council today put out a release saying - the proposal is for the Marion Jones to be used, quote, "as as a staging area for parking, while still allowing Operators to have a set number of vehicles at the Memorial Park awaiting passengers to load. This is to alleviate the parking congestion for residents and business owners. This component is still being ironed out and a stakeholder meeting will be held hopefully mid-March."
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