Even the hustlers behaved this week
Police were out in force for Aids 2016
DURBAN’S beachfront promenade had a heavy police presence this week as Aids 2016 Conference visitors enjoyed the city’s prime attraction.
The cops were on horseback, in vehicles, in golf cars and on foot.
Gone from the usual promenade population were large number of beggars and hustlers, noticeable by their warm layers of clothing in the heat of the day, rough, uncombed hair and burnt skin.
Could the police presence have put the hustlers off ?
“Yes,” said a regular hustler who goes by the name of The Dolphin.
“You can no longer hustle openly and freely. You just can’t do it. Not with these by-laws,” he said, referring to the “nuisance laws” passed this year.
“I’ve been asked twice why I am walking up and down. The police are now here until 10pm, patrolling up and down as if it’s 2pm, questioning people they think might be suspicious. They’ve gone out of their way to enforce the law.”
He said he believed this quality of policing should be an everyday thing. But he quickly added: “But that would not help us.”
The paradox of many people like The Dolphin is that often they are well-spoken, intelligent and informed: signs of having had opportunity and possibly privilege at one time.
It can also show in their opinions, until suddenly they remember that they’re now living an awful life with other interests and survival strategies that became their reality when something went wrong, often it was succumbing to drugs.
In The Dolphin’s case it was his reaction to a failed relationship and alcohol, he said.
The recent holiday season was a boom for street people, he said. But with the Aids conference, extra security and language barriers hadn’t helped either.
The Dolphin said he had “not received a single dollar since the beginning of the Aids conference”.
He returned to the beachfront recently after having lost a job he held briefly as a security guard, which he battled to hold down as he needed to still supplement his income by hustling.
“I was caught sleeping on the job,” he lamented.
He said he was aiming to get off the streets and dreamed of owning a kayak so he could paddle to beyond the reach of beach fishermen’s rods to catch “big fish”, and then set himself up in a flat or garden cottage.
The heavy security presence around the big conference extended from the beachfront and hotels, up Bram Fischer Road to the International Conference Centre (ICC).
A string of conference visitors walked the route daily..