The main damage done by a police union demonstration Wednesday morning at Havensight Mall was to the merchants -– the taxpayers -– who had virtually no business as the West Indian Co. Ltd. kept the main gates to the shopping area locked until noon.
WICO took the precautionary measure to avoid confrontations between Police Benevolent Association demonstrators and cruis ship visitors. The PBA had announced its intention to take its grievances to the tourists. However, owing to WICO's strategy, few tourists were aware of the demonstration.
Shopkeepers in the mall and across the road outside were much less concerned with police travails than with their silent cash registers. An employee of Soapy's Station, an online café next to Al Cohen's Mall, observed the protest, noting, "Nobody can get to us, anyhow."
Gourmet Gallery manager Mamoud Suid was less sanguine about his lack of sales. "It was a significant drop," he said. "All that brouhaha, very disappointing and for nothing -– what are they going to get?"
Quik Pix owner Jeffrey Kreiner was also unhappy. "It just killed business," he said, "and I don't know what they're going to prove."
Kathy Schlesinger of Dockside Bookshop said, "We were extremely aggravated with the locked gates. Our customers drive here, they don't walk off the ship." She said she couldn't estimate offhand how much business the shop had lost but said there were literally no customers until noon, when the demonstrators left and the gates were unlocked.
Betsy Woodward, manager of the Pussers' Outlet store across from the mall, said business during the morning was "awful -– nothing at all, not even any crew members." Pussers' gets most of its customers from the ships, as passengers exiting the mall just walk across the street. But with the gates locked, they couldn't do that.
It was possible for drivers to get to the mall stores by parking at the adjacent Port of Sale Mall and walking to the harbor side of the area and back up. However, most prospective shoppers didn't take that option, but just drove off.
