IN JAMAICA: No eating, drinking or preaching on JUTC buses...What Do You Think? Will they comply?

Wednesday, December 31, 2014    

THE Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) will, as of Monday, enforce regulations barring eating, drinking, vending, and preaching on its buses.

Additionally, no pets, smoking, begging, or soliciting will be allowed on the State-owned public passenger vehicles as with inappropriate sexual behaviour.

The new rules announced yesterday by the Jamaica Urban
Transit Company will come into effect on Monday.
(OBSERVER FILE PHOTO)

In a release yesterday, the bus company said that the tightened rules will be enforced with the help of the police, noting that "a breach of the JUTC rules also constitutes a breach of the Road Traffic and Town and Community Acts".

"...Passengers who continue to eat and drink in the buses put additional pressure on the company's resources to keep the buses clean and free of pests. At the same time vending on the buses also encourages eating and drinking [among passengers]," the JUTC said in the release.

Meanwhile, the JUTC noted that preaching on its buses has been on the increase with a significant number of commuters complaining about the activity.

In 2012, the company tried but failed to effect a ban on the practice amidst mounting complaints from passengers. At the time, then head of the Police Traffic Department, Senior Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis, warned that preaching on the buses was an offence and those found in breach could face a charge of disorderly conduct.

However, the Office of the Public Defender expressed concern that the ban raised some constitutional issues. more