French side curfew 8 PM

No one on the roads past 8 pm

Le Pélican Saint-Martin
tSfhpons4orehdn ·
Curfew at 20 pm starting Sunday confirmed.
The measure will be maintained until June 9th in the morning.
The Prefect has just officially announced it.
′′ Travel will no longer be allowed from 20 pm until 6 pm ". This will be the return of certificates and checks. ′′ There will be no border blocks, just a check from 20 pm ", the Prefect said.

https://www.facebook.com/LePelicanjournal/photos/a.860036410682463/4300998139919589/

WOW. That is going to put a dent in people going and coming from work along with returning from dinner establishments on other side of island.

Wow, that is awful. No one going out to dinner on the French side... Awful.

French-side had 122 new cases in Week 20 (5/17 - 5/23)
Dutch-side had 84.

Both are way up.

The 84 figure was current active cases Dutch side, not new cases in a week. It was 81 yesterday. French side is 350.

Not a good trend.

Story in the Daily Herald today. Link

Going to make it tough for the workers living on French side and working on Dutch side like Marco at Isola.

French side closing down, Dutch side opening up. It won't be pretty.

You got that right. Would not be wanting to stay on French side. Water shutdowns and not this.

I'm thinking it should be 8pm to 6am?

It is.

That's what it is.

Dear me, think its Karma and just not to be. Spend most of the time on the French side and eating out at nights. See this is up to the 9th which they could extend if things get worse. Normally an optimist but just too much with the testing, travel, worry, some health issues and just not knowing. Will now just leave it until no testing and hopefully by Oct-Dec things might be back to normal. Just have to be more patient I suppose.

If all new arrivals must test negative, take temps, test negative to depart……what is the source of this new uptick. I realize you can catch after test and before arrival, lie about temps but id a short visitor shouldnt be able to fool the pre-exit test. The contact tracing should be able to sort this out and not force the whole island into pain and hastle.

Is this vaccine available to all who want it?

As an outsider, it is disconcerting to invest in air/lodging reservations with so much uncertainty. One would have that July would be easy peasy. If if turns out to be harder than anticipated and/or cancelled, the next trip will After total normalcy returns.

I wish I could be more patient too, though I am becoming more leery of our upcoming trip. In the back of my mind, I can handle making our main meal lunch, as many great restaurants also serve lunch. As for the greatest ones (L'Auberge, Bistrot Caraibbes), well, we'll just have to do early bird dining. I have a bad case of cabin fever, and just need to get away. We've already cancelled 3 trips during the pandemic, and I'd hate to do a 4th.

What if you want to go to a casino on the Dutch side ? Do you have to be back before 8 pm if you are staying on the French side?

Just canceled our trip for June 5-13. Not an early-bird person and the idea of having to make sure we’re back before 20:00 just wouldn’t make for a relaxing vacation: let alone worry about sudden shutdown expansions and that the virus situation makes those in charge feel a curfew is necessary, Even vaccinated, a 10% failure rate could pose a problem returning to work the following week. I definitely Wouldn’t want to spend additional vacation days in quarantine.

Hopefully, the fact the summer is posing a problem wont be a worse sign for the winter on SXM. I’ve already waited 17months to return to the island. So, I guess it’ will just be another 6-7 more.

Yes. Curfew is Curfew. Doesn't care where you've been. No papers no crossing. Pretty simple.

Pelican--I would think that the uptick in cases is from locals, not tourists, as the level of vaccination on the island is fairly low. If people on island WANT to be vaccinated they can, but a lot of locals are very vaccine resistant.

Correct. Locals are resisting getting vaccinated for a variety of reasons that I can't comprehend. Some say they are but aren't.

To vaccinate is a choice I believe in. As an islander gets older, 50+, they need to look at the probabilties. The younger islanders have low risk. The risk will NEVER be zero for any of us. But eventually the world will have to reach an equilibrium. The virus and its variants will exist, as will the vaccines and the updated vaccines. Luckily, the you g are not so far the victims. The older will have to deal with a recurri g vaccinate/dont vaccinate risk. Ala the flu, only much more severe. That is my prognostication.

It sounds like this may be a perennial deal. Open the island and let nature and vaccine science and the the risk taking of the individual happen.

Its like the flu that claims many elderly, albeit much worse.

Crappy virus.

Yeah, all those old people partying at nite spreading Covid. Yep

You would have never known there was a shut down at 8pm last night. People were coming and going in the village very late. Cars were still arriving after 10pm.

8 oclock curfew doesn't start till tomorrow night Sunday.

And be sure there will be Gendarmes out and about. Wish they would send them to the Dutch side.

You are wishing the Gendarmes do road check points for what?

Never said that, nothing to do with checkpoints. But breaking up the lawbreakers would be welcome.

Lawbreakers?

People falling out of bars at 2 am.

Breaking Curfew is the same as lawbreakers. Got it! Thanks!

What is the penalty if you are on the road traveling back to your home/Villa after 8:00 pm? We are staying on the French side next week and Certainly not planning on it but should something happen and we have an issue that causes us to be later than 8:00 pm getting back to the Villa I am curious about what would happen. Does anyone know?

Crazy times 😀

Probably won't let you pass through check point. Pretty simple. Plan ahead or stay on Dutch side.

Appreciate your snide response, certainly will plan on being back in the Villa by 8:00 pm question was what is the penalty and I am now assuming you don’t know. As for staying on the Dutch side can’t really change the Villa rental this close to trip.

Not being snide just stating common sense. Curfew is curfew. Take your chances and pay the price whatever it is.

In most of the pics I see posted on various SXM forums, there's never a mask in sight. So if folks aren't getting vaccinated and aren't wearing masks, what do they expect will happen?

Here.now. Just got back to our villa after dinner at Ocean82. The locals are pissed. They believe this is the government’s response to not enough residents getting vaccinated. They correctly point out that shortening the hours for dinner will result in larger crowds crammed into restaurants during the limited hours that they are open. Does this make any sense? We are flying home tomorrow. I expect that there will be protests with road blockages in the days ahead. No government can successfully force their will on people who love freedom of choice and are reluctant to accept everything the government wants to force upon them.

You got it!

Maybe this will be the wakeup call they need to curtail the virus spread.

Probably not....they will just protest the order

Fun and games in paradise. 😁

If you are on FB, check out this post. It's public so everyone should be able to see it.

Best explanation of what curfew means here just now.


https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10159248274457629&set=a.10150528467482629

Good one but people will still get confused or figure it doesn't apply to them.

Thank you.

More clarification.
https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islan...tions-for-essential-travel-during-curfew

heard from a few people this evening that curfew may not be enforced until tomorrow night (monday), due to today’s Mother’s Day celebrations

Good thought. France's Mother's Day is on the 4th Sunday in May.

We are flying in tomorrow and staying in Orient, we have also reschedled this 3 times. WE are going to make the best of it and just eat early. Some of the restaurants in Orient are closing until the curfew.

vrboone--Best wishes. I hear that some restaurants in Grand Case are opening early. Do you know which restaurants are going to be closed?

I have been reaching via Facebook to see what options we will have. Le Telegraph, L'Astrolabe, Atelier, Petit Bistrot are all closed for 10 days. (sorry if I butchered any of the spellings)

Home now. When we dropped off our rental cars to Michael (Unity) yesterday afternoon, he told me that he already had two cancellations for next week. Both customers were planning to stay on the French side, and decided it wasn't worth it due to the curfew.

We had dinner at Rancho Del Sol near Orient yesterday (Sunday) and drove through Marigot to Maho / Cupecoy about 6:30pm. We did not see any Police along the way. Not to say that they didn't set up later.

I'm glad we are not planning on staying on the French side. We may try to get an early dinner and watch the sunset in Grand Case... Or blow it off altogether for dinner..

If we were in a similar situation, we might try to have our main meal in the early afternoon and have a light dinner "at home" instead.

You might also try Fabulous Feasts. We have ordered Emma's "food to go" many times. It is equal to many fine restaurants, Emma will deliver, and she is a delightful woman!

https://fabulousfeasts.com/saint-martin-f-w-i/saint-martin-food-to-go/

No cancellation with us .

Traffic was horrible today coming back from Orient. Steady line of cars going to French side and back to Dutch side. Wonder if it had anything to do with people making sure they crossed before 8.