Higglers !!

[Kold Ass Mofo]

The harassment of people trying to simply walk the beach has changed over the past 30 years. It seems like there are way less 'higglers' than there was 15 years ago but the ones that are left are behaving more like pests and beggars.

I am not talking about the licensed vendors or dudes who have their regular beat, their regular customers, and know not to make a negative impression on the tourists. You know, the tourists, the people who bring all the damn money to the beach.

In my opinion, the new breed of overly aggressive pest-like vendors are just one bad situation away from harming the Negril tourist scene. Welcome to the new world where a bad trip-advisor or facebook post can cost a hotel a season. A firm "no thank you" was all that most of these cats needed to back off. Unfortunately , in the past 12 months I have witnessed some problematic encounters, screaming matches, and begging.

A group of us were walking the beach to breakfast early one morning and an attractive young lady jogged past us. One of these unlicensed vendors of nothing (but crappy dope) ran in front of her blocking her way past while reaching out for a hug. She was clearly not interested. She spun herself around and started back in the other direction. The dude runs after her and grabs her arm from behind nearly taking her to the ground. A bunch of people started yelling for the guy to backoff and he starts verbally abusing everyone.

Great morning, welcome to Negril. Clean this $hit up Negril or suffer the consequences of less and less tourists every year.

The new breed of beggars go something like this:

wanna buy some smoke? NO
come on look at my stuff man. NO
dont you like me mon? NO
how about some money for food mon? NO
what have you done for the Jamaican people, you voted for Bush!

[jamaicabnd]

We never had with the normal higglers in March. Always a polite no thank you and that was it. We did encounter something that we had never seen before in the 20 years we have been going to Negril. We were walking back on the beach after dinner when we were approached by two kids. The proceeded to beg big time, calling me boss and saying they could not go to school if we did not help by giving them money. They were insistent following us down the beach. Very uncomfortable. I did not want to encourage this behavior by giving money. We bring school supplies down and are very giving but this was too much.

[jojo p]

Wasn't going to bring this up, but since you did jamaicabnd, I feel I need to. I actually felt there was less hustlers this past trip. Also, which was really good, less of the crazy bikes on the road. With that said, these younger boys ( average age 10 to 14 ) are getting worse. They get in your face, do not take no for an answer, use the line that obviously someone has taught them ...'' please for money to go to school ''..... I had one actually call me a bi.....ch.….my mouth just dropped as I was pretty stunned. Parents or someone are sending these boys out and instructing them. I fear how they are going to turn out being so aggressive at this young age.

[SLP]

Jojo. I did see quite a few of these kids. They are selling woven bracelets and you are correct, they can be persistent. I blame their parent/s for sending them out instead of having them in school. Yes I know it is not cheap to go to school there, but there is always a way.

[original spanky]

ok let me share a story. many years ago in my red ground days say late 70's . we had a group staying in the yard where i stayed. there was a band and some friends.all Jamaicans one of the guys had a nickname it was dummy. i had asked about the nickname but did not get anywhere. one day one the beach i saw dummy coming with a sign. please help i can not speak or hear . seemed like he was doing pretty well i did nort give it away.

[Kold Ass Mofo]

ok let me share a story. many years ago in my red ground days say late 70's . we had a group staying in the yard where i stayed. there was a band and some friends.all Jamaicans one of the guys had a nickname it was dummy. i had asked about the nickname but did not get anywhere. one day one the beach i saw dummy coming with a sign. please help i can not speak or hear . seemed like he was doing pretty well i did nort give it away.

I hope there is a special place reserved in hell for people who pretend to be disabled.

[original spanky]

i agree with the cold ass mofo post. for a while we saw a group patrolling the beach. i thought it was silly at the time but think they need to bring them back. i am guessing the new group are not local but come to Negril from Mo Bay or Kingston.

[MikeyNYC]

Was there for five days at the beginning of this month and thought it wasn't too bad but I also didn't do much night time walking, which I've done a lot of in the past. I only had two annoying run ins. One dude just wouldn't take no for an answer. After telling him no four or five times progressively louder with his replies "listen" "listen LISTEN" "LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN" I stopped acknowledging him as he cursed me and finally stopped trying to walk with me.

The other was some guy that started following me down the beach and was basically just trying to beg a beer. I'll get a beer for my taxi guy if he wants to hang out for a bit or for some people i've become familiar with over the years, but I'm done buying beer for randoms for no reason. After telling him no a few times, he sucks his teeth and says "you just gonna bring all that Jamaican money back to America?" I told him not to worry about what i do with my money.

[brownsd54]

The best thing Jamaica did to curb the negative higglers was the Jamaica Tourist Board Security Police. Those people with the white uniforms and the white pit hat. That's what they did, was to stop aggressive and annoying higglers and beggars on the beach. They watched out for the tourists. If they came across an unlicensed seller or an aggressive higgle on the beach, they would ban that person for a period of time like a week or so. The higglers paid attention to these people because they want or need to higgle, so banning them was a big deal. Where are they now and what can we do to bring them back. Perhaps a work or two to the Negril Chamber of Commerce.

[Captain Oil]

We did not see any of the Jamaica Tourist Board Security Police while on the beach in Negril for 9 days earlier this month. WTF ? ?