Junkanoo police manpower increased amid overcrowding concerns

Junkanoo police manpower increased amid overcrowding concerns
[FILE PHOTO]

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — With Junkanoo tickets sold out well over a week ahead of the annual Christmas/Boxing Day parade, Minister of Youth, Sports, and Culture, Mario Bowleg said that they expect to see overcrowding as many people tend to stand up and watch the parade if they did not get tickets in time.

With this factor having been considered Bowleg said that he has been in discussions with the police Commissioner who has assured him that both defense and police officers will be monitoring the area that is expected to be heavily populated between Christmas night and Boxing Day morning.

“We have strengthened the security awareness of manpower that will be on Bay Street, that will be a combination of police and defense force officers that will ensure that safety of all those individuals will be kept, for all those who decide to come out on Bay Street.

The minister added that they anticipate a ‘much greater’ crowd than what we usually have seen over the years and that overcrowding is a concern.

“All of the seats are gone, so persons intending to come out on Bay Street without a ticket, then they intend to look forward to standing around as we all did in our earlier days when we wanted to go to junkanoo and we couldn’t afford tickets and we were in high school,” Bowleg said.

The discussion took place during a press conference at the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Culture where KFC made a donation of three thousand dollars to the ministry toward the junkanoo parade in effort to support the growth of culture in the Bahamas.

Bowleg said that he is grateful to receive the sponsor as the ministry encourages community organizations to partner with them in helping to grow various programs.

“The government purse can never fund all of these various initiatives especially in this ministry when it comes to youth, sports, and culture so it’s very important that cooperate sponsors come onboard with us to assist.

“You know it takes a village to grow a child, well it takes a village to grow a nation and so when cooperate sponsors come onboard with us it helps us to build this nation.”