EARLY THIS year, supermarket owner Winston Lee says he received a 'well-typed' letter from an un-named source requesting $20,000 per month to protect his staff from harassment by area thugs. He was not the only recipient.
"Everybody on the strip got one but we got it to the police really quick and it was crushed," Mr. Lee told The Sunday Gleaner. "We haven't heard anything from them since."
Mr. Lee's family has been operating Lee's Food Fair Limited on Red Hills Road, St. Andrew, for over 35 years. He said it was the first time that they were approached by thugs to pay for protection; not even when criminal activity was rife along the stretch five years ago.
COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIP
"We've been here so long that we've developed a kind of community relationship. Anything that happens at 100 Lane or with the church, we are always happy to participate."
The Lee family, which operates another supermarket, Xxtra, in nearby Red Hills Mall, said although the strip has not undergone mass transformation since they first set up shop there almost four decades ago, several 'foundation' businesses closed due to the rise in crime and the refusal of owners to pay extortion.
Mr. Lee said the situation had toned down considerably since the police established an outpost at 100 Lane in the aftermath of a massacre in early January 2002, which saw eight persons killed between there and neighbouring Park Lane.
"The police pay a lot of attention in the area so I feel a lot safer now, to tell the truth," he said.
Superintendent Assan Thompson, commanding officer of the St. Andrew North Police Division, told The Sunday Gleaner that several persons were apprehended in connectiion with the extortion letter sent out to businesspersons along Red Hills Road.
"They were taken into custody but no one was charged. We were able to identify the source but we understand that that person has run away," he disclosed.
He believes extortion, and crime, have declined in the Red Hills Road area since the police beefed up their presence there.
"The businesspeople used to suffer from it. Some persons were frightened about it," he said.
Winston 'Merritone' Blake, who operated the popular Turntable Club at Red Hills Road until 2002, wished the police would have been as aggressive six years ago when crime erupted during the national gas riots. He blames their inactivity at the time for criminals getting out of hand, forcing he and his three brothers to stop the music at a location they played for 29 years.
"We thought there was a lack of police presence, the police were just lackadaisical and lethargic," Mr. Blake told The Sunday Gleaner last week. He says he and his brothers were never approached to pay extortion during Turntable's near 30-year run at Red Hills Road, but concedes that may have been different if they were not popular in the community.
"I understood from I went there that you can't be in the community and not be a part of it so I was always in touch with them," he explained. " And that is probably the reason why some of the people who grew up and became these guys would never ever come to me (for extortion) because I was always a father figure to them."
At the height of the criminality, other Red Hills Road stores closed, including the Supreme Cash and Carry meat store, and Gaynor's Boutique.
According to Mr. Blake, he made the decision to stop the music at Turntable when the dancefloor gradually got empty. "The scariest period was when I looked and saw nobody, a lotta my friends just weren't coming back because they were scared for their safety on the roads," he said.
Mr. Blake opened Turntable in 1973 when the Red Hills Road strip was the epicentre of Jamaican entertainment. Clubs like the Tit-For-Tat and Stables were consistently packed with patrons but at the close of the decade only a few were still around.
Turntable was the last of the clubs from that golden age to close, something Mr. Blake says left him in a state of depression for a year.
Superintendent Thompson says with the setting up of the police post at 100 Lane, crime has toned down and the climate for business along Red Hills Road has improved. The American supermarket chain, PriceSmart, opened a branch there two years ago and smaller enterprises have popped up during that time.
Winston Blake still has a relationship with residents in some of the toughest communities at Red Hills Road. He says some even encourage him to return to the strip and re-open the Turntable.
"They seh, 'Mr. Blake yuh mus' come back 'cause things better now' but it just wouldn't be the same," he said.
