A RESIDENT of Lot 76 Princes Street, Georgetown, who has been illegally rearing pigs for sale in a section of the Le Repentir Cemetery, has filed an injunction against the Mayor and City Council (M&CC), preventing its officers from entering that section of the burial ground and removing her pigs.

Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green told City councillors that the M&CC sought to show the resident, Jean Bacchus, a humane face in not seizing her pigs but allowing her time to remove from the area. “Councillors were giving support to her and asking to give her more time – more time to file an injunction,” the mayor said.

The City Council, she noted, is now in expense to find money to pay a lawyer when the case comes up in court.

At a statutory meeting last March, councillors heard how the woman had been rearing pigs in the cemetery for the past 15 years and has also begun slaughtering them there for sale, allegedly at the Bourda Market.
Town Clerk Royston King had painted a rather graphic picture of what was happening in Le Repentir Cemetery currently, calling to mind the many reports that circulated about broken tombs.

“Can you imagine a pig pulling at a human bone?” he asked, as he called for immediate attention to be paid to this issue.
Chase-Green said the owner of the pigs, after being told some two months ago that she has to desist from rearing pigs there, visited her office and requested some time to move.
However, she noted that it was only recently that she heard of reports of slaughtering being done in the cemetery. “There is no way this Council can agree that we can rear pigs in the cemetery,” Chase-Green maintained.

Councillor Heston Bostwick suggested that the farmer be removed immediately, as opposed to Councillor Oscar Clarke’s plea for leniency to be extended. Clarke argued that it is the farmer’s livelihood and that she should first be spoken to; but the mayor reminded him that she was already asked to remove.

Clarke said it would be heartless to simply throw the farmer out and referred to the fact that she had been allowed for a long time without anyone objecting. He also suggested that the City Council help the farmer find an alternative location.

The mayor had directed the town clerk to send a written notice to the farmer to remove after no more than 14 days, after which the administration said it was going to take any action permitted by the law.

Within that ‘leniency’ period was when the injunction was filed.