Community Safety
Whether there are safety plans in place to protect business vendors from thieves/looters during protest marches; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
The South African Police Services informed me as follows:
2. The SAPS, Western Cape does have a plan for public order and crowd management during gatherings and demonstrations. The Western Cape Standing Operating Procedure, Service Delivery and Stability provides for the basic procedure on how to deal with public instability for crowd management in the province.
In terms of the operating procedure, SAPS, after having received information of a public gathering or demonstration, liaise with the relevant parties and thereafter draw up a specific operational plan to police the specific gathering and demonstration. Part of the planning is to warn businesses along the route of the demonstration to close their businesses or remove their goods from the streets which are going to be used by the demonstrators however, in most cases, businesses and vendors along the routes refuse to close their businesses or remove their goods from the street because they see this as a possible business opportunity.
