Tuesday’s front page photo was disheartening to say the least: Public benches in ruins on Front Street at the height of the tourist season.
Parliamentarian Lyndon Lewis (NOW) deserves credit for bringing this matter up during the 2025 budget debate. To add insult to injury, he said, several are used by merchants as drying racks for mats and other wet objects.
The opposition member asked Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) Grisha Heyliger-Marten pertinent questions about maintenance, including arrangements to collect what’s left of the broken ones. He also wondered whether spraying or painting them was part of a recently-announced Philipsburg beautification plan.
The latter, along with construction of the new marketplace, should provide a significant boost to the down-town shopping area. For now, however, the unsightly and potentially concrete remains must quickly be removed – if this has not already been accomplished in the meantime.
Little was said about what caused this destruction in the first place, but the answer seems obvious. Motorists attempting to illegally park are the likely culprits.
They do so out of convenience or – if you will – downright laziness, unwilling to walk a few metres more. Being able to get away with it also plays a role.
Let’s face it, nobody likes having their car towed and needing to pay the bill to retrieve such, but it’s the only real deterrent. Traffic fines often aren’t settled, prompting Lewis, the former Justice Minister, to suggest making such mandatory to pay vehicle tax and drive on the road legally.
While most people are generally law-abiding citizens, some try to take shortcuts even though they should know better. Unless frequently penalised, more will follow suit.
It may sound like a broken record, but without persistent enforcement rules are seldom worth the paper they were written on.
