MAYOR of Montego Bay Glendon Harris has promised to reintroduce the once popular 'MoBay Nite Out', in time for the upcoming winter tourist season.

"I am putting a committee together. I have started out with a few persons but acting upon recommendation we are going to expand the committee to include other persons," Harris told the Observer West. "So as soon as they have done their ground work then we will announce a start-up date and it's definitely going to be before December 15."

'MoBay Nite Out', a street party, once held along Gloucester Avenue popularly known as the 'hip strip' in the resort city during the 1990s on Monday nights, was discontinued following charges from some hoteliers that the event was severely affecting the flow of traffic on several roadways.

"We started it in the 1990s and it was stopped in the wake of complaints from some hoteliers about the blocking of the road when in truth it (the roads) weren't really blocked, we made it into a one way," the mayor explained.

Harris stressed that apart from its entertainment value the event will provide economic opportunities for many local vendors when it returns to the 'hip strip'.

".....So the event will provide economic opportunities for the different people............. the restaurants, the shops, up-and-coming artistes will get some exposure as well," Mayor Harris pointed out. "We will have the general populace getting something to do on a Monday night as they will get to lime and enjoy themselves. When people are relaxed they perform better."

Mayor Harris was speaking with the Observer West during the inaugural staging Caribbean Shrimp Festival held at the Whitter Village in Ironshore, recently.

Harris commended the organisers of the festival, pointing to the slew of benefits that can be derived for the staging of such events.

"Events like these which expose culture, widen knowledge, give persons somewhere to go, utilising people's entrepreneurial ability, will definitely create wealth and productivity within our society," said Harris, who is also the People's National Party's councillor for Maroon Town Division.

Meanwhile, despite the heavy rains which threatened to wash out the event, scores of patrons from a wide cross section of the society, streamed into the venue where they were treated to top-class entertainment and a diversity of shrimp delights.