Are businesses responsible for shoppers' safety?

Paolo Kernahan

IF YOU invite people to your home, do you feel any responsibility for their safety or welfare?

At various business outlets, it's very much a shop-at-your-own-risk ethos.

We're happy to take your money. If there are other people also happy to take your money, and your car and everything else in our parking lot, well...that doesn't have anything to do with us.

The season of merriment – bandits masquerading as paranderos (Somos los Banditos), smoked sorrel garlic pastelles, and pickled ham – is here again.

Even with higher costs of living levied on the average working stiff, there will of course be increased shopping.

In the days of yore, a curt disclaimer posted in parking lots was sufficient to let customers know they were duly warned – if your car is broken into or disappeared altogether, cry about it elsewhere.

Times have changed, though.

While party hacks appointed to the Ministry of National Security could say they aren't responsible for citizens' security, they can do so without consequence.

Businesses, on the other hand, might not fare so well in taking that hands-off/up approach. We can't have both the government and the private sector abdicate their responsibility to the public at the same time. Well, we can, clearly, but it isn't ideal.

The private sector is likely to say the security of citizens is the government's job. That isn't happening, so the business community is obligated to speak out about the state of affairs and provide greater protection for their customers.

I used to be a regular at the MovieTowne complex at Mucurapo. When it became clear the site was becoming a hotspot for settling scores and other criminal shenanigans, that was enough for me to lock that place off for good. But that's just me.

Other Trinis need more convincing; this persuasion is a work in progress. Gradually, as your customers, the source of your profits, are continually victimised by roving, organised bands of armed criminals, your earnings will be jeopardised as the herd becomes more skittish about assembling at your watering hole.

Most of the shopping malls and commercial plazas I've visited have either limited or no security at all. In cases where there is a smattering (two or three) of uniformed security staff, they usually restrict their sedentary surveillance to the perimeter of the building. Alternatively, they are ensconced in guard booths absorbed in their phones – perhaps watching Look de Bandit, the Netflix for criminals.

Businesses of all sizes operate in this country and must therefore be aware of the crime trends that have overrun society. None can be excused for ignorance of the fact that the car parks of shopping malls and plazas are widely used as staging areas for criminals.

These emboldened brigands have no qualms about sticking up a security guard in a booth at a business place; targeting your customers is all in a day's work for them. Business owners are surely aware criminals are either attacking their clientele on their premises or tailing them directly to their homes, where worse is planned for those hapless victims.

A security guard at one of the busiest shopping plazas in Trinidad once explained to me the techniques criminals use to identify their prey coming out of the bank – they scan the area for people with manila envelopes under their arms, women carrying their purses or handbags seemingly unaware of their surroundings, etc.

I'm not a security expert, but I certainly would like to see more frequent security patrols of car parks. There must be a way to spot suspicious vehicles or people lurking on the periphery of the premises.

While I get that it's much cheaper to have one or two people monitoring a bank of real-time security feeds in a room somewhere, this transfers the cost of crime to the customer.

The ubiquity of security cameras in these places is cold comfort for public prey. There's no deterrent effect; otherwise, there wouldn't be an endless parade of blurry videos of brazen raids on business places every day starring many unmasked gunmen. While the footage makes interesting viewing, prevention, even if not possible in all cases, is the better option.

I believe businesses have a moral obligation to invest in the protection of their customers from the widespread criminality that has become our defining trait.

They frequent your business and fill your coffers, notwithstanding the tremendous risk to life and limb. Stop taking it for granted that they'll always be there because they "don't have a choice."