The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK 

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net 

A DECLINE in business has forced the closure of another establishment at the Port Lucaya Marketplace, where merchants are struggling to hang on as government seeks a buyer for the closed Grand Lucayan resort.

The Tribune has learned that Molly Malone’s Irish Pub & Eatery closed last week after six years in business.

The Irish-inspired restaurant, with touches of green décor, opened its doors in 2012, serving an exclusively locally brewed amber ale on tap, and Irish cuisine.

Proprietor Yvonne Morris, a native of Belfast in Northern Ireland and a resident of The Bahamas, went into the restaurant business along with her Bahamian husband James Morris, after many years in the hospitality industry as manager of the former Shenanigans restaurant.

The Tribune attempted to contact the owners, but was unsuccessful. It is not known how many employees were employed the restaurant.

When contacted for comment, Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce President Mick Holding said the closure of the Grand Lucayan is still having a dire impact on the island’s economy.

He said that he is aware that another business at Port Lucaya has closed, and that many others are trying to hold on until the government sells the hotel.

Although Mr Holding is hopeful that the government will find a buyer, he said that it could take at least six months before it is sold.

“I think in the long-term, I am hopeful now that government owns the hotel that they will find a buyer, and in the long-term the economy will recover,” he said. 

“But being realistic, it is at least six months away before the hotel is sold, and it is reopened. And I know in that six months a lot of businesses are going to continue to suffer, and a lot of them are just hanging on,” he said.

In the meantime, visitor arrivals are down in Grand Bahama. Last month, the island’s struggling tourism industry lost some 30,000 annual visitors after Sunwing airline pulled the plug on its summer airlift initiative.