While T&T re­mains un­der a State of Emer­gency (SoE) aimed at curb­ing vi­o­lent crime, busi­ness op­er­a­tors along High Street in San Fer­nan­do say rob­beries and pick­pock­et­ing con­tin­ue much as be­fore.

Sev­er­al own­ers and em­ploy­ees yes­ter­day said while busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty con­tin­ues as usu­al in the city’s main com­mer­cial dis­trict, in­ci­dents such as jew­ellery snatch­ing and rob­beries have not dis­ap­peared, and they be­lieve a stronger and more vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence is need­ed to de­ter crim­i­nals. Al­though of­fi­cers are fre­quent­ly seen along High Street and near­by streets, some work­ers be­lieve the pa­trols fo­cus large­ly on traf­fic du­ties rather than crime pre­ven­tion.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty had re­cent­ly been alert­ed to two day­light rob­beries in the down­town area. Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Singh said there was a rob­bery ear­li­er this week along Cof­fee Street and an­oth­er on High Street last week. He said the brazen­ness of the crimes was trou­bling, giv­en that the coun­try is cur­rent­ly un­der emer­gency reg­u­la­tions de­signed to sup­press crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.