Front view of the Tower Isle Hotel. The north-coast resort building located in the main Ocho Rios hotel area can accomodate 210 guests.
HEALTH
January 13, 1948: The St. James Parochial Board accepted a recommendation from the Medical Officer of Health to offer a reward of one penny for every rat caught in the town of Montego Bay.
When it was pointed out that some persons had presented lizard tails in the past, the Board decided it would do business only on the basis of a penny for the whole rat body.
TOURISM
January 14, 1964: The 200-room Reef Club in Boscobel, St. Mary, was officially taken over by Playboy International Club of the USA on a 20-year lease. This was the first Hotel which Playboy decided to operate in addition to its then internationally famous Playboy Clubs. The management said that refurbishing of the entire premises to reflect the suave Playboy image would begin immediately in order to open it for the following winter tourist season.
TOURISM
January 15, 1949: Tower Isle Hotel built by Abe Issa in St. Mary, opened for guests. The hotel, a 3-storey building, had 60 rooms. Issa also owned the Myrtle Bank Hotel in Kingston.
LABOUR
January 16, 1941: A Bill was prepared to be presented to the Legislative Council setting out that "no woman shall be employed in night work except for the purpose of completing work commenced by day or for the purpose of preserving raw materials or for the purpose of personally managing the business, or work in connection with the preparation and shipment of fresh fruit".
MANUFACTURING
January 17, 1981: Wicker Wonderland, a furniture craft shop which made its products from the wicker which grew wild in Jamaica, received the 1980 International Furniture Europe Award at the Paris International Furniture Show. Wicker Wonderland was owned and operated by Lorrie Alexander, a Guyanese who had made Jamaica his home.
COMMERCE
January 18, 1966: Munair Hammaty, Solicitor of Savannah-la-mar, was unanimously elected President of the Westmoreland Chamber of Commerce at an extraordinary general meeting held in the Parish Hall, Savannah-la-Mar. He succeeded the late Ralph Hutchinson who had died recently. Others elected were E. Segre Lewis, first vice-president; Leslie Williams, second vice-president; Owen Sinclair, third vice-president; and J.A. Cooke as fourth vice-president.
TOURISM
January 19, 1951: The Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce decided to make representations to the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, protesting the sale in Hotel shops of everything 'from a pin to an anchor'. Members felt that these shops should only sell 'smokes, candies, toothpaste and toothbrushes, neckties, books, magazines and newspapers, as with the wide range of items available in these shops visitors had no need to leave the hotels to patronise the stores in the town'.
- Compiled by Hartley Neita
