The partial closure of the Elbow Beach Hotel announced last week is not an enormous surprise. Rumours that the hotel would close for a renovation of its main and outmoded main building have been rife for at least two years.

But that will be no solace for the 150-odd people, around half of them Bermudian, who will be out of work within weeks. And while the hotel deserves credit for making sure that redundancy and severance packages are larger than required, it remains a fact that these employees will have a hard time finding equivalent employment in the struggling tourism sector.

The public will also be rightly sceptical about the plans to renovate and improve the main building in "three or four years". That is an extraordinarily loose time frame and much will depend on economic conditions in Bermuda before that renovation takes place.

The reality is that it is exceptionally difficult for a traditional resort to make money in Bermuda. As long as construction and labour costs remain higher than in almost any of the Island's competitors, the economics don't make sense unless the property can offer an unrivalled vacation experience to match the prices Bermuda must charge. And sadly, that is not the case in many Bermuda properties, despite the great efforts made to upgrade properties in the last few years.

In the meantime, international business leaders are right to warn that the loss of hotel rooms will have a negative effect on the profitable leg of the Bermuda economy. If visiting businessmen cannot get flights or hotel rooms, Bermuda's attractiveness as a business jurisdiction will suffer, and, now more than ever, Bermuda cannot afford that.

Crime and punishment

There should perhaps be no surprise that crime is far and away the number one issue for people in Bermuda, outstripping even the state of the economy.

And there may be something in the idea that the number of arrests being made by Police and the number of people being sent to court tends to raise general awareness of crime. Of course, the public should also feel easier about crime when they see people being convicted and sent to prison, but that seems not to be happening.

What is more likely, Assistant Commissioner Michael Jackman indicated, is that high profile cases like the Richard Gaglio shooting, among others, suggests that much violent crime, which has been concentrated between gangs of young men, is now spreading into the wider community. The crimes were no less serious when they were occurring between gangs, but much of the general public did not feel directly affected or threatened. It is worth noting that Mr. Gaglio is white as well, and it is interesting to note that, according to The Royal Gazette polls, concern about crime has been higher in the black community than among whites for some time.

The Police also noted that aggressive use of the PACE legislation is paying dividends, with around 100 of the 300 identified serious criminals now behind bars. This approach needs to be taken with some care; the risk of profiling or of harassment because someone is on a list is high. The potential for abuse is there, especially now that search warrants can be signed by senior Police officers.

That is not to say that the Police should not be aggressive in enforcing the law or in arresting legitimate suspects, simply that care needs to be taken that the wider powers now held by the Police should not be abused. At the same time, the causes of crime, which have been the subject of recent editorials, are equally important.