“I am totally for revitalising Bridgetown. Frankly I was ashamed last Sunday when leading an early morning walk with 25 of our guests.”
There’s nothing like the smell of urine to attract tourists!
by Adrian Loveridge - small hotel owner
I fundamentally believe that any new planning or policy directive must be based on fact and thorough research. This becomes even more critical when allocated budgets are under severe pressure while ‘we’ as a country are looking to maximise our tourism earnings.
Gut feeling, intuition or speculation may work for some small enterprises but it surely cannot be a prominent factor when spending an annual budget close to $100 million.
What prompted these thoughts was after reading an article in another publication last week entitled ‘Night shopping can give boost’.
Store owners in Bridgetown have been urged to consider opening their businesses to allow night shopping. It was indicated that ‘such an initiative would be a fillip for tourism, especially the cruise ship industry’.
In theory it’s a laudable idea… but wait a minute…
Using February as an example and carefully going through cruise ship schedule, so ably posted on the Bridgetown Port website, a small amount of research indicates there is not necessarily the opportunity portrayed.
In fact the vast majority of ships leave Barbados between 5pm and 6pm.
These include the following vessels with the number of visits, during this month and passenger capacity shown in brackets:
Carnival Victory (2,758 passenger capacity x 5 visits)
Serenade of the Seas (2,490 x 2 visits, Celebrity Constellation (2,034 x 2 visits)
Celebrity Summit (2,034 x 2 visits)
Crystal Symphony (933)
Massdam (1,258)
Noordam (1,924 ) at 5pm.
Norwegian Dawn (2,224 x 2 visits)
Emerald Princess (3,080)
Thomson Dream (1,132 x 4 visits)
Mein Shiff 2 (1,886 x 2 visits)
Celebrity Equinox (2,850 x 2 visits)
Aida Luna (2,100 x 2 visits)
Caribbean Princess (3,080 x 2 visits)
Costa Mediterranea (2,114 x 2 visits) at 6pm.
Joining passengers would certainly not leave it to the last minute, so further time has to be given to journey from the centre of Bridgetown and undergo any security checks before disembarkation.
The ships that tend to stay longer, with very few exceptions (Braemar, Azura, Ventura and maybe Kristina Katarina (450 passengers) are the much smaller vessels that include Sea Dream 2 (112 passengers), Silver Cloud (296), Wind Spirit (148 ), Club Med 2 ( 386) and Royal Clipper (227). One other ship, the Marco Polo (800 ) departs at 8pm.
So when you eliminate all the passengers that leave Barbados late afternoon, then discount the remainder that may not be prepared to forgo their included dinner or dine very late, I wonder exactly what sort of numbers are left that would be attracted by ‘late night shopping’?
Please let me add that I am totally for revitalising Bridgetown. Frankly I was ashamed last Sunday when leading an early morning walk with 25 of our guests. However we have to start with the basics and known facts rather than speculating of what could be.
Clean up the capital, get the homeless people off the streets and give some simple incentives to property owners to maintain and enhance their buildings.
These first elementary steps just might give real reasons for visitors and locals alike to frequent Bridgetown at night.
If this happens then just maybe longer trading hours would follow.
Editor’s note: This post was printed as received with the exception of the main title and the sub-title “There’s nothing like the smell of urine to attract tourists!” that were Cliverton’s ideas.
Barbados Free Press 
Who’s doing all the indiscriminate wee-wee-ing?
White women? Tourists?
Black girls? Female hucksters? White Bridgetown businessmen?
No. It’s the only category left out.
Adult Black Males. They piss any- and every-where they please.
They long out De Ting and “pass water” -except it’s stinking URINE, not ‘water’
Disgusting adult black males – who can’t find a civilized bathroom ANYWHERE
despite the fact that all other above-mentioned categories of people somehow manage to find a bathroom!
The only conclusion being that this specific category of “citizen” could only be mentally disadvantaged!
It’s a national scourge…maybe even a pastime.
And absolutely nothing can be done about it??
Barbados is sooo friggin backward in some areas..
Cruise ships require all pax to be back on board either 1 hr. or half-hour prior to those scheduled departure times mentioned in the article.
For a stated 5 p.m. departure, that means most folks are back on board by 4 – 4:30 p.m. and their day ashore is DONE.
Besides, most of them did their local shopping right there in the Bridgetown cruise terminal in the port, where most Bajan stores have outlets anyway.
Listen, a few years ago i sat at a meeting of cruise tourism professionals who where looking for ideas to encourage and advance that sector. i told them one key thing to look at was the cleaning up of town. Everybody nodded but thought that idea was too boring and moved on to ther ideas which years down the road were never realised either . but you see i was not talking off the top of my head. the clean up idea came from the comments section of the Min of TOURISM/BTA/CTO CRUISE VISITOR SURVEY which clear show that the cruisers think town is NASTY, SMELLY and UGLY. Compare town to George town Cayman, Nassau Bahamas, Hamilton Bermuda and the one in St. Maarten. do you understand now? Please let planning and focus be based on market research, on what the TOURIST THINK and what they expect and let us strive to satisfiy this and stop letting others beat us to it all the time.
Where are we going to put the homeless, at your place Adrian?
Why Adrian’s place??? The homeless belong TO BARBADOS.
They are OUR home-grown 100% Bajan Homeless.
They don’t belong to Adrian.
Why should Adrian solve OUR BAJAN PROBLEMS???
Our Bajan Problem Homeless belong in OUR Bajan Mental Hospital.
Can you get real about that?
and stop expecting white foreigners to solve OUR Bajan problems.?
Heloooo?
Only to have de Bajans an dem nasty it right back up?
The solution is to clean up BAJANS, so they stop littering indiscriminately, and stop the nasty black men from pissing everywhere-except-Broad-Street-itself!
Then, automagically, Bridgetown would clean up itself and smell like Somewhere Civilized!
I never smell urine in Philipsburg, or in Marigot, or in Basseterre =how come??
Wife and I walked thru Castries: No pissy smell. How come (No Bajans!)
Every Dry Season (..when the rain doan fall?)
Bridgetown smells pissy beyond belief, and continues to smell that delightful way until Rainy Season comes along to wash it all down and into the Careenage. Poor marine life in the Careenage!
In that case (and if the weather pattern holds according to normal)
we have some months to go yet.
Meanwhile inhale deeply and ENJOY the local thing.
And we wonder why the cruise ships are reducing calls to the island?
Try changing Bajans. GOOD LUCK! Dum hard and hardened!
Remember the NISE program = lol
This nation is in a downward spiral and incapable of reversing itself
short of upheaval, coming soon…simply because we can’t be bothered..and we simply can’t believe that the glory days are now well behind us, and the coasting is overrr.
Stand by BDF.
Adrian has a nice inn I am told. They can all fit in there. I wonder if they are any homeless in London?
@ what will they think of next: February 6, 2012 at 7:24 pm
What are you getting at? Every time constructive criticism is offered about improving the environment and cleaning up the place, Bajans get very defensive and find all sorts of stupid excuses why things should remain the same. Let’s deal with the nasty, “pissy” Bridgetown situation. We need the visitors. They don’t need us; only the sun. And you are coming to the realization that the sea, sand and friendly service at reasonable prices are not in short supply these days in other sunny places. How dare you compare Bridgetown with London? Go and compare Bridgetown with Port-au-Prince, Port-of-Spain, Kingston, Accra or Lagos! Not London, please! In London, these dirty men would be dealt with appropriately by the Council for the City of London or by other borough councils. In 19th Century London, Shit(e)borne Street would have its modern day rival in Bridgetown.
Leave Adrian out of your personality focused vitriol and address the issue of “dirty” run-down Bridgetown full of molesting street urchins that is in dire need of a major facelift and clean-up campaign.
He wants indigent Bajans removed from Brigetown, let him remove them and house them.
Homeless Poles living on barbecued rats and alcoholic handwash
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/aug/12/homeless-poles-rough-sleepers
Has the situation in London changed in London since
agust last year Adrian?
I guess all of these nice white Polish homeless men and others women included, when they want to pee, go to the equivalent of Chefette restaurant in London knock on the door, ask to use the toilet, pee and come back outside.
.I got it right? Nice white men!!! Somehow thats not what I saw when I was in London last!!!!
Once again, people who don’t want to look at a solution blame the messenger, and use race as a platform. Sigh. When will we ever grow up?
Bridgetown on a hot day smells like piss.
My wife and I love cruises. We’ve done at least one a year for the last 16 years and sometimes two. We’ve cruised on the Alaska coast, up rivers in China, Vietnam, Brazil and Russia. One of the most memorable cruises was along the Danube in a converted barge that held only 12 people.
Bridgetown on a hot day smells like piss.
@32535834/24346-C66
Why do the homeless belong in a psychiatric facility? Some maybe but all?
Yeah good idea. Attack Loveridge. Don’t bring some comments on how to get the place in order.
One of these days I am going to leave 10 gallons of pain infront of ***jet house and *****bird house in town (the back drop of of our wonderful recreation area ) and see what happens cause some land lords can”t after 30 years of collecting rent afford to tidy up their property. Both Mall** and Trident ***** looks dumpy and tired and ****** Centre seems to have unpresedented electrical problems that it can’t open back yet. Da****** Mall food court resembles a bus stand no $$ to tidy that either. Then people wonder why people leave town early. At least BTII tried with the board walk and carenige thing but merchans and land lords must do something too.
BAJANS want Bajan homeless removed off the streets of Barbados.
This is not just white-boy-Adrian’s call.
This is the call of all upstanding,realistic, thinking Bajan citizens
who realize that this country is quickly becoming what the Brits
(those nasty white ppl who delivered us a decent country back in Nov. 66)
call A SHIT-HOLE
a term I hear often used to describe NAPLES in Italy.
Bridgetown is crap. Avoid it. It is nasty. Smells downright unhealthy.
Cruise tourists would be well advised to see other parts of our island but please please avoid smelly Brigetown
(where the locals think the situation is just perfectly normal and acceptable – to lower-class Bajans who’ve never travelled off this rock, and therefore have zero basis for comparison).
Question: Has What will they think of ….EVER TRAVELLED?
I mean..other than River Bay…
QUITE CLEARLY, What will they think of next
has come to grips with the dreadful reality that Barbados
is not handling its own internal problems, major and minor!
This is why he makes all sorts of silly “alternative suggestions” as to where/how our vagrants might be handled.
This is why he quickly flies the race flag…because he (a “proud” Bajan)
is having a real hard time losing the hi-minded national-ego-stance that Bajans held for sooo long,
they thought the good times would never end,
that the golden goose would live forever
and now the sand has hit the Bajan fan, and the complaints are coming in faster than the tourists are.
Remember when West Indies Cricket would rule the world forever? LOL
Oh dear, what an unpleasant BOG we find ourselves in,
and no-one ever warned us (for years and years)
that it could easily come to This Juncture one day,
if we took it all for granted!
Well, lookah whuh gone en happen NOW!
LOL it cracks me up. I heard someone else use that line but I just have to borrow… If you visit Barbados then allow a decade to pass, come back again, and the same vagrants look the same and sitting/laying down in the same spot in Bridgetown.
But seriously who hangs out late night in Bridgetown? I’m safely- back in doors before dark (or at lease on the bus for home.)
Bridgetown is one of the only- cities in the world where you wont find a hotel. Seriously Within actual Bridgetown city limits try to think of two hotels.
@ backwardness holding us bck
I agree with the fact the many store owners are not maintaining their properties they do look rundown and need upgrading – Government buildings included. Perhaps this is something the ministry could look into in the form of incentives for them to do so instead of blowing money on rhianna. Keeping people in town by making it more attractve can be a better long term strategy than one duty free day.
I have to agree with “backwardness holding us back” white people for all the years own everything in Bridgetown and it still looks stink, they are the ones who should clean it up. Them and Adrian. The white property owners just suck the life out of Bridgetown and leave it to decay. If the Black Govt. didnt step in and do something about it Bridgetown would resemble Haiti.
At least the indigent in Bridgetown dont BBQ rats for Dinner as they do in London.
An easy way to beautify Bridgetown is to take down Nelson.
@ Anonymous: February 7, 2012 at 5:34 pm
“Remember when West Indies Cricket would rule the world forever?”
Excellent analogy!
Could not have written better!
Bim gone!
@what will they think of
is it white people or a demographic from further east that has these buildings in the state they are in? look carefully at who is controling real-estate in Bridgetown. who are the families involved.
is not it the indians/syrians. the mentality seems like “lets make as much money as possible but dont reinvest a cent to maintain or upgrade. black bajans will keep coming”
who is in control? :February 7, 2012 at 10:52 pm
And it is the black Bajan bureaucrats who are on the “take” that allow this state of urban decay to continue because the black Bajans “like it so and will keep coming”. What a sad state we have fallen into?
Quoting miller etc. “Bridgetown full of molesting street urchins”
This is not true.
I am in Bridgetown regularly.
There are no street urchins if by street urchins you mean homeless, begging children
If there were homeless, begging children in Bridgetown I would have immediately reported the matter to the Child Care Board and the Board would have acted.
The truth is Bridgetown needs more good quality public toilets. Bridgetown has fewer public toilets that when I was a child 50 years ago, and yet the population has doubled, and the number of visitors has increased by a factor of 10. Government should build and pay to maintain good quality public toilets. And if government won’t do it than the merchants of Bridgetown in their own self interest should. I’ve noticed that the government (I presume) has installed an inadequate number of porta-potties in Flower Alley. Porta-potties by their very nature stink (they stink in Paris also. I know I’ve been there) I certainly would never use them, not in Bridgetown, not in London, not in Paris (and I’ve been there and there and there) The taxi men in that area pay high taxes in order to hold a taxi license. These hard working, foreign exchange earning men deserve better.
It is time for the government, for Bridgetown’s business people (and I include the taxi men as Bridgetown business people) and for the tourism sector provide decent traditional public toilets for us Bajans, us shoppers and for the tourists too who come to our town. We all deserve better.
And don’t tell me we don’t know how. I use the Adams International Airport regularly. The airport probably sees more people traffic and more people who need to pee that Bridgetown on any day of the week, yet the toilets at the airport are always clean.
Therefore we know how to create, use and maintain clean public toilets.
millertheanunnaki make statements and he does not let the truth get in his way.
Very sad to see the paid ‘ad’ in the Nation today stating that the WATERFRONT CAFE is now only a DAY PLACE.
Sue and her team have done an incredible job over the years providing great service at reasonable prices. Whatever the reasons behind the decision it does nothing to revitalise Bridgetown in the evenings.
Adrian, agreed on Waterfront. it is now only open Thursday nights for jazz. we took friends there last week and we were impressed at how many locals – as well as visitors – were there. it was practically SRO.
“Whites” are responsible for the way Bridgetown looks? Have you looked at historic photos of what Bridgetown looked like when it was still a colony?
The following is part of a comment I wrote about taxes, it works just as well in regards to the state of BRIDGETOWN. funny that isn’t it?
This Government is owed millions in taxes because we must not upset the foreigners (not only whites are foreigners). After all we will die without FOREX wouldn’t we?
They (foreign businesses) may create jobs here and there (cheap labour, it’s a reciprocal process, we need money, they need workers) but then the bulk of their money is sent out of this island. All it takes is a little bit of CREATIVE ACCOUNTING.
@what will they think of next: February 8, 2012 at 2:03 am
This is the “Truth” about Bridgetown:
It’s a clean (no litter or piles of garbage seen) vibrant town even in the evening where the atmosphere especially at night smells of roses and relaxing fragrances. Visitors (and those who don’t look like the locals) are not harassed every minute by touting taxi operators but are politely shown the taxi rink where the next cab in the queue is on offer. Drivers are very polite and do not park on the sidewalks.
Beggars, some exposing their private parts, are never seen lying on the pavements or riffling through garbage bins. Visitors and even locals are never pestered by some who clearly have mental challenges. You must have seen one or two in action meeting & greeting the visitors with a hug and some stringed beads on offer for sale at rip off prices.
There are very nice toilet facilities so the males don’t have to relieve themselves in public. The back alleys are kept clean with no odours of urine or leaking sewage pipes to cause one to hold one’s breath.
The derelict building that once housed Empire Theatre along with the growing shanty-like shacks next to the bus terminus and the old storage bonds around the waterfront are shining examples of how Bridgetown looks after its architectural heritage in keeping with its World Heritage Site designation.
Now this is a “true” picture of Bridgetown and the feedback from the visitors would attest to its authenticity.
Right?
There might not be a lot of street urchins yet but the crass and uncouth behaviour of some residents could only be described as immature or juvenile; to be diplomatic. And this is from a ‘sophisticated” population that prides itself to be 99% literate and everyone has access to free education up to tertiary level.
@ Random
As I read the various posts one thought mushroomed bigger and bigger – where ARE the public toilets in Bridgetown? There aren’t any are there? Thank God for Cave Shepherd. So, yes…….you got it – the obvious answer to the pissing problem – well unless old habits die hard.
And yes, of course the cruise ships leave early. I thought everyone knew that.