Paolo Kernahan

IF YOU invite people to your home, do you feel any responsibility for their safety or welfare?

At various business outlets, it's very much a shop-at-your-own-risk ethos.

We're happy to take your money. If there are other people also happy to take your money, and your car and everything else in our parking lot, well...that doesn't have anything to do with us.

The season of merriment - bandits masquerading as paranderos (Somos los Banditos), smoked sorrel garlic pastelles, and pickled ham - is here again.

Even with higher costs of living levied on the average working stiff, there will of course be increased shopping.

In the days of yore, a curt disclaimer posted in parking lots was sufficient to let customers know they were duly warned - if your car is broken into or disappeared altogether, cry about it elsewhere.

Times have changed, though.

While party hacks appointed to the Ministry of National Security could say they aren't responsible for citizens' security, they can do so without consequence.

Businesses, on the other hand, might not fare so well in taking that hands-off/up approach. We can't have both the government and the private sector abdicate their responsibility to the public at the same time. Well, we can, clearly, but it isn't ideal.

The private sector is likely to say the security of citizens is the government's job. That isn't happening, so the business community is obligated to speak out about the state of affairs and provide greater protection for their customers.

I used to be a regular at the MovieTowne complex at Mucurapo. When it became clear the site was becoming a hotspot for settling scores and other criminal shenanigans, that was enough for me to lock that place off for good. But that's just me.

Other Trinis need more convincing; this persuasion is a work in progress. Gradually, as your customers, the source of your profits, are continually victimised by roving, organised bands of armed criminals, your earnings will be jeopardised as the herd becomes more skittish about assembling at your watering hole.

Most of the shopping malls and commercial plazas I've visited have either limited or no security at all. In cases where there is a smattering (two or three) of uniformed security staff, they usually restrict their sedentary surveillance to the perimeter of the building. Alternatively, they are ensconced in guard booths absorbed in their phones - perhaps watching Look de Bandit, the Netflix for criminals.

Businesses of all sizes operate in this country and must therefore be aware of the crime trends that have overrun society. None can be excused for ignorance of the fact that the car parks of shopping malls and plazas are widely used as staging areas for criminals.

These emboldened brigands have no qualms about sticking up a security guard in a booth at a business place; targeting your customers is all in a day's work for them. Business owners are surely aware criminals are either attacking their clientele on their premises or tai

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