To all rental car businesses

This is to support the need for rental car agencies to orient foreign drivers on the laws and expectations of driving in the CNMI. I want to thank Kagman Rep. Lorenzo DL Guerrero for speaking out on this issue. But too often, just asking people to do something, especially businesses, won’t get it done completely, especially when it is systemic and dependent upon all to fulfill or respond accordingly. I would like to suggest a simple law that would require rental car agencies to show their clients a simple pictorial checklist of expectations for their clients to sign, showing they have been informed of these expectations. All tourists need to be oriented in pictorial form.

A pictorial approach will be the best method to resolve these issues. It is also very simple to implement and to explain, as opposed to a written document that would have to be in several languages and still explained to some degree.

It is also important to require rental car agencies to perform the orientation of driving in the CNMI to foreigners. If a tourist is stopped and cited for a violation and he or she doesn’t have a signed copy of the pictorial orientation, then the rental car agency will also get a citation for failure to follow CNMI rental car law. We must fix this growing problem as it will only get worse!

Regarding the paying of citations by tourists who leave and never pay, this will continue to be a growing problem as our tourists industry grows. I actually offered the solution for the collection and payment of all citations in the Cannabis Act. There will be tourists who will get citations for smoking pot in unauthorized places and we also need to make sure no tourist leaves the CNMI with marijuana. I proposed in an amnesty checkpoint—tourists and everyone leaving would be screened for marijuana and a computer check for any outstanding warrants and citations to be paid before leaving. Individuals would be allowed to throw their marijuana or products away with no repercussion before entering the federally controlled area and, if they owe payment for a citation, they will have to pay it before they can proceed to exit the CNMI. Locals will be able to call and check if they owe anything before even going to the airport so they can be prepared. The implementation of a CNMI marijuana use card will also guarantee that every tourists who doesn’t drive and gets a citation for pot can’t use a fake name to avoid paying the citation. The problem of collecting all citations and warrants can easily be resolved with the method I suggested in the Cannabis Act—only if leaders will make it the law. There was also funding from the $12 million in start-up funding in the Cannabis Bill to assist the airport with more dogs and extending the departure checkpoint.

As for the tour guide certification, I actually went to MVA and talked about the same concerns raised by Rep. DL Guerrero because there are no local tour guides! How can foreign tour guides know more about the CNMI than locals? Locals are truly being marginalized out of the more skilled and high-profile jobs in tourism. Locals have no idea of the false and misleading stories some of these foreign tour guides are telling tourists about the sites, the history, the culture and the people of the CNMI. If the Legislature doesn’t do something in the form of affirmative action to promote and protect certain jobs for locals, it’s going to be a CW and Chinese operated tourism industry.

Ambrose M. Bennett
Kagman, Saipan