The Tribune

THERE WAS excitement in Grand Bahama when in a jocular remark -- which translated meant that the PLP's election promises will happen "when chickens grow teeth!" - Prime Minister Ingraham remarked: "Down in West End Mr Sammons is coming back and so is Jack Tar!" The tongue-in-cheek remark was made in answer to all the promises that the PLP were making about what they would do if they won the 2012 election. What Mr Ingraham was in fact telling the large crowd at the opening of the Russell Town, Eight Mile Rock constituency office on Saturday was that if they believe the PLP's promises then they will also believe that Mr Sammons -- the one-time saviour of West End -- and his Jack Tar hotel were also returning. If this were true it would be a jubilant day for West Enders for whom Mr C A Sammons and his hotel were their sole support, until the PLP government and the unions arrived and upset the happy relationship. Things went sour. Mr Sammons, at that time 84 years old and in failing health, closed his hotel and left. Overnight 400 Bahamians were without employment. At the time PLP West End MP Moses Hall criticised Mr Sammons for such an unkind act. In typical addled PLP logic, Mr Hall thought that -- no matter how unfairly his government had treated the Sammons group -- Jack Tar would continue to operate "in the interest of the Bahamian people". At the time, we asked Mr Hall how many of his "all for me baby" political colleagues -- and even he himself -- would have dug deep into their pockets "in the interest of the Bahamian people." The question was never answered. But we know the answer. Not one of them felt that deeply for their own people -- so why should Mr Sammons, a generous foreigner, spurned and mistreated by the Pindling government and the unions, be held to a higher standard of duty to Bahamians? However, Mr Pindling was so sure of himself in the 1990s that the future of the Jack Tar Hotel became an important issue in the Marco City by-election. He promised that if his man won that election the Jack Tar hotel would reopen. His man won, but Jack Tar remained closed. It was looking for a buyer. Chaos followed, and West End has never been the same since. When Jack Tar closed, Mr Hall and the self-styled PLP mayor of West End, businessman Artis Neely, who led the attack on the Jack Tar enterprise, were jubilant. "The best thing that ever happened," chortled Mr Hall. "We have outgrown Jack Tar. Jack Tar is irrelevant to us." As for the equally short-sighted Mr Neely, he believed that the closure of the hotel "represents an opening of a new era of prosperity in the West End." He welcomed the closure. He believed that it meant full occupancy for his guest house, and prosperity for his restaurant. No such thing happened. His pockets quickly felt the pinch. A year later, both he and Mr Hall were singing the blues. Not only did the closure affect the residents of West End, but it had an adverse affect on the whole of Grand Bahama. West Enders had full employment, but so did the Grand Bahamians who commuted the 44 miles to work at the hotel. "We have gone back in time," an unemployed young man told The Tribune in June 1991. "Things used to be tough, but now that the Jack Tar is closed things have gotten tougher, I mean real tough. When Jack Tar was open we were sure of work. They used to be the backbone of this settlement." When a group of young people was asked to comment on their MP's comment about the closure being the best thing for West End, one of them spoke for them all: "Nobody should be happy that Jack Tar closed," he said. "Jack Tar never treated the people bad. I remember when the West End people used to have steak on their table. That's when Jack Tar was open." In 11 years in West End, the hotel had lost $27 million. It was being squeezed by the union, not allowed their essential immigration permits, and even denied the usual rebates under the Hotel Encouragement Act. The irony of the situation at that time was that while a reputable and most desirable investor was being pressured out, shady investors seemed to have special protection. Joe Lehder, for example, at the time the uncrowned king of Norman's Cay, could boast that he had paid his dues and was now a member of the club. And Hawks Nest had an unusually long and successful run -- again like the Lehder case -- only American pressure broke up that drug nest. And so we would suggest that if PLP leader Perry Christie is - as he claimed last week - the "bridge" between Sir Lynden and "the new generation of PLP leaders," he is inviting Bahamians to cross a very shaky bridge. Based on past experience and the many unfulfilled promises during the PLP's five-year administration, we would bet on chickens growing teeth before we would put any faith in any of the PLP's election promises.