Despite warnings being issued, vending is continuing outside of the newly constructed Infectious Disease Hospital, at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, and Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine has said that the City Council will not allow tolerate such lawlessness.
In a telephone interview, acting Chief Constable Peter Livingstone told Stabroek News that vendors are selling without permission outside of the newly constructed Infectious Disease Hospital, and he condemned the illegal activity.
Livingstone explained that the city’s policy is that if persons are found vending illegally, they are given the option of paying a removal fee of $25,000 or face arrest and prosecution.
He said due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more effort is being made to minimise illegal vending to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“When people are vending, you normally see two or three vendors, and they are usually close together, and when people come around the site to buy, they are not practicing social distancing,” Livingstone said, as he noted that the vendors outside of the hospital were warned on two occasions about the illegal activity.
Mayor Narine, who also commented on the issue, said, “We will no longer allow vending to take place all over the city; we have to put a system in place and cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour.”
He added that if persons wish to vend, the council is willing to place them at the Merriman Mall, or any other place, but it will not allow what has happened outside of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) to be replicated outside of the Infectious Disease Hospital.
Narine said the city’s goal is to have vending done in a uniform manner, rather than having vendors “here, there and everywhere.”
