The owner of J’s Fashions is just one of numerous store owners who are calling on tourism officials to breathe life into that side of Nassau’s main thoroughfare, which is suffering from a lack of business.
Ms. Mortimer who opened her store back in 1973, said this is the first time she has not been able to pay the salesgirl who has worked with her for the past 12 years.
“I could show you in my books, my girl salary is $800 in arrears and I’ve been months without a dollar. I cannot pay any bill, bank bill, car payment – none. This is serious. She been here for 12 years with me. I tell her, whatever she make, take it home. We don’t make any money down here,” said Ms. Mortimer angrily.
“My girl hasn’t been paid for the past four weeks. Right now, I don’t have a dollar to do anything. Things are so rough. Bay Street need a facelift. They don’t care about us up on this side of Bay Street, I guess.”
Ms. Mortimer’s concerns are not new, neither are they in isolation. In recent years, many businesses on the eastern side of Bay Street have been forced to close – some permanently, while others have relocated. Dora Caf�, Mucka-Mucks, Manila Restaurant, Roberts Shoe Store, K. S. Moses and the list goes on.
Last year, Ms. Mortimer closed her other store, ‘Basic Wear,’ which was also located in the downtown area. She blames the closure on lack of business, the high cost of rent on Bay Street and deteriorating buildings in the vicinity.
“I had to close down because when it rains, the water pours in the store and nobody seems to want to fix their building but they still ask you to pay this exorbitant rent. I cannot make it like that, so I close the other one down. When I open this store in 1973, I used to deliver the dresses to the hotel room to tourists, but for the past two years, I don’t know what happen. It’s like a disaster down town….people are suffering. We need help. Please hear our cry. We need help,’ she shouted.
“I wouldn’t lie, the cash register ring today, but it ring for a very little amount. I tell you the truth, I can’t pay any bills. I can’t even afford to buy lunch. Good thing my children are all grown. I’ve never seen it this bad and I’ve been in business for all these years,” Ms. Mortimer added.
Two doors down at ‘Hole in the Wall’ which was established since 1943, an elderly worker’s cry was the same. It is her opinion that many tourists are of the opinion that Bay Street ends at the corner of East Street.
“It is the truth. The people don’t come this way. We have to pay the rent and light bill and water bill and so forth, but we don’t get no people. This been here since 1943 and before Mr. Irvin Wells died a year ago, he said that Bay Street gone down and I can see that Bay Street gone down. I mean this part of Bay Street, not the part that goes west,” emphasized the woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Echoing her complaints was Natasha Fisher. The young entrepreneur said her business, ‘Angel’s Unisex Beauty Salon,’ which is to the rear of Expo Fashions on Bay is struggling.
“I just think that it is believed that Bay Street stops at East Street because from East Street straight down, they haven’t fixed up. If they beautify the whole stretch, I think that would do something good for the downtown area. This time of the year is a very slow period. If you don’t go out there, give out your flyers and really push your own business, you wouldn’t have any customers and I don’t think it is fair because all of this is Bay Street…the tourists out there don’t know that there is more to Bay Street than pass East Street,” she stated.
Compounding the situation is the lack of parking on Bay Street and the surrounding area. Store owners say Bahamians in particular avoid downtown for the same reason.
“Even some of the landlord who own the properties, where our customers used to park, they went and fix the parking lots up and start charging the customers. In the front of my door, they have no parking, so the people can’t even stop there to come inside the store to shop,” said D. J. Bevans, proprietor of Star Electronics.
“We here on the eastern side, they have us as the forgotten part and they wouldn’t take care of this section. Every time you look around the landlord charging more rent. If you look from East Street coming east, you see how much buildings vacant and for rent?” he asked, adding, “a lot of people went out of business. They have to do something drastic to bring Bay Street to what it was,” said the businessman of 28 years.
Now, the Nassau Tourism and Development Board is making a proposal to the government to provide incentives to potential store owners. The Board believes an ‘Enterprise Zone’ would work wonders to the depressed side of Bay.
The idea according to Executive Director, Frank Comito, is to allow tax exemptions and other incentives to attract new business to what used to be a thriving area.
“You can look at basically the area from East Bay Street and take that all the way up to the new Paradise Island Bridge and take it back to Dowdeswell Street and you could create some real incentives of all different types of developments, residential, commercial and touristic. The incentives might be an extension from customs duties for building or restoring or creating new business activity in that area, perhaps some property tax exemptions and expedited government approvals to help make things happen,” said Mr. Comito.
“It is to create some sort of stimulus to entice development into those areas and make it attractive and the enterprise zone concept is one way that some communities have dealt with urban blight…there may be ways through an Enterprise Zone concept, through government policy to create some inducements to attract Bahamians to invest in this area,” he added.
Likening the prospective policy to the Hotels Encouragement Act which attracts investments to the country, Mr. Comito noted that the enterprise zone concept was first introduced in the United States 30 years ago and has been duplicated around the world, with success
By Hadassah Hall, The Bahama Journal
