HOW appropriate that the Justice Department at Stormont should choose Halloween as the backdrop for their latest billboard campaign warning of the alleged threat from criminal gangs marauding through West Belfast.
For these swaggering mafia-type figures appear to be entirely ethereal and other-worldly.
Indeed, though much-talked about by Alliance Party trick-or-treaters, no-one has actually verified the existence of the ghastly, ghostly gangsters supposedly holding local entrepreneurs to ransom.
In fact, no local business has actually reported (to this paper or to the police) being extorted by these paramilitary overlords who dwell, it seems, in a ghostly netherworld.
Even the PSNI has no record of actually apprehending any of these devilish characters, never mind securing a conviction in court.
Could it be that, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the supposed warlords terrorising the local business community are entirely imaginary, no more than the wishful thinking of those in high places who know nothing about West Belfast — except that 'there be demons'.
Readers may remember that the first blitz of Department of Justice posters smearing local businesses as dupes to paramilitaries appeared in January 2025. They were, not surprisingly, met with an outcry from our hardworking small business sector.
Justice Minister Naomi Long came out guns a-blazing, nevertheless, to defend a hopelessly out-of-touch PR debacle which served only to deter investment and revive memories of past NIO publicity campaigns against the "terrorist community" of West Belfast.
Egos satisfied, you might have thought the offensive billboards would have been quietly shelved.
Not a chance.
Come Halloween and the clocks falling back and we have another round of sinister posters splashed along the main business thoroughfares of West Belfast.
Even the Andersonstown Road, viewed by estate agents as one of the most-desired road for retail in Belfast with a rapid turnover of empty units, was not spared. A huge billboard declares ominously: 'We must end criminal gang exploitation of local businesses.'
Meanwhile, just yards away, a new business opened its doors this week - Zain Supermarket, where the proprietor, Syrian native Jamal Ghabes (who was burnt out of his last store in loyalist South Belfast) has been basking in the warmth of a West Belfast welcome.
If the powers-that-be can't follow those dots, then this Halloween, our readers have every right to be scared witless at just how dumb some people can be.
