Belize City Deputy Mayor expresses outrage over tainted candy crisis

Speaking out on this recent crisis of tainted candy, Belize City’s Deputy Mayor, Allan Pollard has expressed outrage at the situation, and the fact that children’s lives were put at risk.

Allan Pollard, Deputy Mayor, Belize City Council: “It is indeed a crisis, a public health crisis but not only that but just a public tragedy in general knowing that our kids were put in a position at a place where you know our kids are supposed to be the safest, at school. I think that something like this there’s a lot of places to place blame, there’s a lot of fingers to point but at the end of the day we have to really just empathize first with those kids going through whatever they’re going through right now and just pray and hope that we can get them out of the situation they’re in. The adults as well. I was informed that we have a staff that was going through the same thing that has been exposed to the laced candy so we’re monitoring closely and seeing what is happening from the council level.”

Adding to the conversation is the issue of trade licenses and improved regulations for street and school vendors.  According to Pollard. it is something that he will bring before the City Council.

Allan Pollard, Deputy Mayor, Belize City Council: “When it comes to that I was just as shocked as anybody else because of course when we heard the scenario the first thing we asked “How did they get it ?” right ? That was the first question the public was asking and you know to me it was – there’s no words to describe how disappointed you can be in the process that’s in place for disposing drugs you know ? And I don’t know what happened here because I know we’ve seen newscasts where drugs are being burnt so we think that that is the standard disposal method. What happened here I can’t even understand or imagine how something like that could slip through the department. But it’s just unfortunate. That’s one thing. Another gap is getting it from how do we get from a dump site to vendors or how do we get from a dump site to the homes of Belize is something that is incredibly concerning from a public health standpoint. You know we are the issuing bodies of vendor license, what we call a peddler’s license so these people out here if it’s a situation where these kids were sold the candy from an outside vendor it raises extreme concern for us and it’s one that we shouldn’t take lightly and we’re supposed to definitely put some measures in place so that a situation like this doesn’t happen again. How do we do that ? I don’t know at this time but it’s something that we definitely have to put on top of the agenda.”