By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Cabbage Beach Vendors Association plans to take legal action against Access Industries for missing and damaged beach equipment.

Last Wednesday, vendors were shocked to see an entrance to the Paradise Island beach locked and their items relocated when they showed up on site in preparation for their return to work next month. Some members of the organisation also claimed their items had been damaged by whoever moved them off the beach.

Kirk Bethel, who said he was the first vendor in history to set up chairs and umbrellas on the beach, said the CBVA has already filed an official complaint with the Royal Bahamas Police Force over their missing property.

“Wayne Munroe, QC, and attorney Maria Daxon are supposed to take over the case so we just have to forward the rest of the information over to Paradise Island Police Station along with the receipts for the chairs and umbrellas that are missing,” he told The Tribune.

In 2014, the ownership of the Cabbage Beach property was transferred from Atlantis (Brookfield) to a subsidiary of Access Industries. In a statement last week, the company said the fence was erected due to upcoming work on a $250m project. The company also said the access point to the beach will be closed due to “safety” concerns during construction.

Mr Bethel said the entire ordeal felt like a “slap in the face” to vendors who have been out of work for more than a year due to the pandemic. He added morale was low since vendors were “fed up and upset” with the current situation and “did not know which way to turn”.

Asked whether the government has reached out to the CBVA since the controversy surrounding the locked gate first unfolded, he stated: “Nothing at all. You know how the government go, ain’t nobody looking out for us...Both of the governments have failed us in the process. They could easily just tell them people what to do. They come into our country, you can’t just let people throw the Bahamian people off of our beach which we been on for 30 years.”

In March 2016, police clashed with Cabbage Beach vendors and protestors who led a group from Sidney Poitier Bridge to the Paradise Island beach. At the time, angry demonstrators tore down a fence blocking one of two access points to the beach.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, who was in opposition at the time, took part in the protest and called the effort “a sure sign” that Bahamians were fed up with the empty promises offered by the Christie administration.

Noting how the prime minister protested against a similar situation while in opposition, Mr Bethel said he believed Dr Minnis has now “failed” the vendors.

“He don’t care (because) he has yet to say anything about the matter,” he stated. “(At the protest in 2016) I was one of the guys there and he was on the side of me. So I don’t understand them, when they get in power they just switch on you. The Bahamian people for years keep getting throw off the beach. The PLP and the FNM keep (allowing us) to get throw off the beach, but I thought the Bahamian people own the beach, I don’t know how you can sell a beach.”

Mr Bethel said he is hoping the civil and criminal suits the CBVA intends to file will allow the vendors to “get their stuff back”. He also said he hopes the government will “at least buy back a part of the beach to protect the Bahamian people”.

“We need everybody to come together and we need the government to go in the House of Assembly and overturn this thing,” he said. “You don’t let people come into our country and just sell it out and we don’t have no more beach for ourselves. And we trying to do the same thing to Goodman’s Bay because if we don’t watch out, then Goodman’s Bay gone.”