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Sev­er­al ma­rine and tourism-re­lat­ed busi­ness­es in Ch­aguara­mas have been forced to close dur­ing this week’s in­ten­si­fied Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing the se­vere traf­fic con­ges­tion linked to the Stink and Dut­ty fete at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by Ma­rine Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MSATT) pres­i­dent Jesse James, who said at least 40 busi­ness­es were forced to shut down on Sat­ur­day due to the traf­fic snarl re­lat­ed to the event. He said busi­ness own­ers have de­cid­ed it is bet­ter not to op­er­ate than to face more se­vere in­con­ve­nience with oth­er events planned in the penin­su­la be­fore Car­ni­val cul­mi­nates on Mon­day and Tues­day next week.

James said the scale of dis­rup­tion has reached a point where some busi­ness own­ers now plan an­nu­al clo­sures from the Fri­day be­fore Car­ni­val straight through to Car­ni­val Mon­day, cit­ing un­cer­tain­ty, staff ac­cess is­sues and re­peat­ed fi­nan­cial loss­es.