The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The taxi union's president says the industry is seeking to shed its "hustlers at the dock" image after several drivers protested over the Nassau Cruise Port's new call-up system and police efforts to enforce it.

Wesley Ferguson, the Bahamas Taxi Cab Union's (BTCU) chief, told Tribune Business he was not intending to involve himself and the union in the row and urged all drivers to use the space allocated by the cruise port for soliciting fares.

"The BTCU took more than two years negotiating with the Nassau Cruise Port to create a safe, pleasant and fluid environment between the taxi drivers and the tourists. We are hell bent on sorting out that haggling of the tourists in the downtown area on the sidewalks," he added.

Mr Ferguson responded after some drivers on Friday protested outside the Nassau Cruise Port, and Tourism Police Station, over what they alleged was a heavy-handed approach to enforcement by Royal Bahamas Police Force officers that is unduly restricting their ability to earn a living.

One driver was purportedly taken into custody for what onlookers said was “just standing on the sidewalk". Pointing out that the the sidewalk is public, not private property, a few drivers said they had no choice but to stand there and market the services they offer to passing cruise ship passengers so that visitors know they are there and what they provide.

Voicing disquiet with the call-up system, at least one driver asserted that Mr Ferguson was too close to Nassau Cruise Port and that the union was not looking after their interests. Lincoln Bain, the Coalition of Independents leader, was present and met with police officers, after which he said law enforcement had agreed the sidewalk was public property and taxi drivers can stand there.

Mr Ferguson, though, said: “We have aggressively negotiated with the Nassau Cruise Port for a friendly environment between the Nassau Cruise Port and the taxi drivers and the cruise ship passengers. In our opinion, it is satisfactory between the BTCU and the Nassau Cruise Port in that the system on the inside of the port is working properly.”

There is a 22-space taxi bay inside the Nassau Cruise Port where taxi drivers can log-in and line-up to pick up passengers coming off visiting ships. Mr Ferguson said there is no reason for taxi drivers to be standing on the sidewalk hassling tourists, adding: “You don’t have to get up into a tourist's face. We have an air-conditioned holding area for taxi drivers. We also paid for union representatives to gather up people for the taxi drivers so they don’t have to haggle the tourists or overcharge them."

Haggling tourists was supposed to be eliminated by the new call-up system, and Mr Ferguson added: “The system at the Nassau Cruise Port is working perfectly, but we have a few taxi drivers who have decided upon themselves...... We want the taxi drivers to be seen as ambassadors and not just hustlers at the dock. We don’t want them sleeping and using the rest room at the dock, either.

“Whatever is going on between the police and those taxi drivers, the BTCU is separating itself from that because 95 percent of the taxi drivers from the cruise port work from within the Nassau Cruise Port facility."

Leamond Deleveaux, deputy police commissioner, on Friday urged local taxi drivers to "resist" the kind of behaviour that amounts to harassment of tourists. In one social media video, a police officer tells a taxi driver he cannot talk to tourists about his services because it would be deemed 'solicitation' and break the law.

"I invite you to take a drive downtown. Police officers are doing an aggressive approach. We've had a number of tourist complaints and so police officers are there. There is supervision. Will we need more? Absolutely. It is always good to have more supervision, but we're doing the best that we can," he said.

"We want our country to have tourists come back because, as you know, we depend on tourism totally, for the most part, for our economy. So we're saying to the public, the young people and the not-so-young people who are out there harassing the tourists, we're saying to you; 'Resist that type of behaviour'. We know that you all need to make money but, of course, there is a proper way to do it."