Things did not go his way for rock star Lenny Kravitz, a resident of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, who was recently ordered to shut down a free dental practice he established on Eleuthera Island for the benefit of the local population.

According to a news report published by Caribbean newspaper The Eleutheran, Mr. Kravitz organized the free dental clinic through his Let Love Rule Foundation and a local charitable organization. The clinic was set to run for four days a couple of weeks before Christmas.

Apparently, Mr. Kravitz ran into a snag on the last day of the clinic, which was held in Gregory Township, specifically at the Catholic Church Hall. With patients on dental chairs getting work done by doctors who flew in from the United States, police and immigration officers barged in and interrupted an ongoing root canal as well as fitting of dentures.

Mr. Kravitz spoke to the officers, who had received an anonymous tip about a rogue dental operation being conducted in a clandestine manner. It so happens that the charitable dental clinic lacked the required authorization by the Dental Council of the Bahamas as well as from Immigration and Customs.

Some of the patients complained that the volunteer dentists, who initially escaped through a back door because they were confused as to what was happening, were treated like “common criminals” by overly aggressive law enforcement agents.

In the end, Mr. Kravitz and the charities were offered apologies over the telephone and allowed to complete their work for the day a couple of hours later.

In Costa Rica, staff members from the New Smile Dental Group participate in charitable outreach from time to time, and they are familiar with the process of obtaining the required permits and authorization from local officials.

Naturally, everyone expects that such permits be issued in an expedited manner since they are for the benefit of the community; alas, sometimes bureaucracy gets in the way, and this is something that can easily happen in Costa Rica, in the Bahamas, or anywhere else in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Mr. Kravitz intends to offer more free dental clinics in the future.