TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Luggage inspection for food

Hello everyone,
I read somewhere that after customs and before you exit the airport that the customs agents are inspecting your luggage now for any food items you may bring on the island. Is this in fact true, as we bring frozen items every year.

Thank you.
Geno

Have friends that brought several frozen meat items 3 weeks ago with no problems.

Any idea where you read this? To my knowledge, what you described is not the case but I may be wrong.

Would be curious to know as well, as we always bring frozen items with us and it has never been an issue in the past.

My wife said see saw it somewhere I just wanted to verify.


Geno

Unless she or someone can post a link to verify this, I would say you are ok at this point.

A lot of this "I heard this somewhere" or "I read this somewhere" going around of late and most is not factual.

No raw fruits or vegetables. That is all they might be looking for.

Wasn't there something posted here a while back by someone who had arrived after an incoming flight from South America, and they were being searched before exit? Sounds vaguely familiar....

It was posted here (can't find it) that SXM was conducting inspection AFTER luggage carousel on arrival when a flight arrived from, I believe, South America.

Looking for drugs and unfortunately no separate carousal for that flight so luggage mixed in from stateside flights was being checked thus delaying people. But I haven't heard that was still being done so not sure.

That may have been what your spouse heard about.

We arrived last year (January) to a major cluster trying to get out of the airport...it took us 90 minutes AFTER baggage just to exit with an unbelievable number of lines that were not really lines...more like random surging masses.

Turns out there was a Copa flight that had been flagged as potentially having baggage with weapons. One officer was examining all bags....discontinued right before we got to the station (after waiting those 90 minutes)

This is from a airport official that was patrolling the masses. Definitely not caused by ribeye steaks....

Never had it happen before and hope to never have it happen again,

Maybe she just wants to go out to dinner every night or at least less cooking?

We had the same experience last March of a huge mass (no lines) after getting our luggage. We were told they were checking for drugs from inter island flights. It was not fun. Eventually we were waived through.