One of Durban’s biggest police stations has been renting its car park and providing a private security service to a nightclub
Paul Kirk
As I pull up into the Point Road parking lot, a well-dressed car guard comes up and ensures me my car will be safe. Neatly dressed in blue, and sporting a bulletproof vest, the guard has a pistol and baton to ensure nobody tampers with my car. His partner inspires somewhat less confidence. He is across the street urinating on a lamp-post, eating a pie and burping – all at once. Both men are on-duty policemen.
The Just Jazzin’ cigar lounge should be the most popular night spot in Durban. With rampant car theft, the entrepreneurial owners have taken parking lot safety to new heights, and employed the police station next door on a full-time basis. No doubt desperate for some secure place for customers to park their cars, the club approached their neighbours – the Point Road police station – and turned part of the police station into a parking lot. The car guards are now policemen.
At the back of the police station is a vacant lot. I can remember as a youth how police cars parked there, and a huge sign proclaimed this was police property – keep out or else! Now the police cars have been banished. They are parked on the streets in front of the building, exposed to the salt air. Paying customers, not policemen, get to use the rear parking.
After assuring the policeman I will pay him when I leave, I walk past a slumbering car guard – no doubt being relieved from his duties by the policemen. I soon get called back to my car.
The friendly policeman-cum-car guard tells me that, rather than walking around the building, I can take a short cut through the station. And, just in case I am thirsty when I leave, there is a vending machine in the charge office.
The car guard asks me to refrain from talking to the prisoners through the broken windows of their cells.
I take the short cut. I soon find some of the cigar lounge customers taking advantage of the dark areas around the detectives’ offices. Here a number of customers have stopped off to enjoy a puff or two of the fine aromatic cigars for which Durban is famous. Good old Durban poison is being enjoyed in a number of corners around the police station. Meanwhile, another reveller is relieving himself against a police motorbike.
After taking the short cut through the police station I have to wait while a bouncer tells a patron he is not allowed to take a firearm into the club. I battle to hear the conversation, but the gist of it seems to be that if you arrive with a gun you are not welcome. The answer is to go to Point Road’s charge office and ask the policemen on duty to look after your weapon.
After half an hour inside the club I reckon it is time to leave. A quick walk back through the police station and I find my car guard where I left him. Never one to deny anything to a man with a gun, I hand over R5 and am on my way.
A trip back to the Point Road police station the next day found the station commissioner unavailable to discuss the car park.
Asked to comment on the parking lot, detectives from the internal investigation unit described the situation as “very odd” and told the Mail & Guardian they would be visiting the station in the near future to investigate.