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!