Few issues have exposed the limitations of the Georgetown City Council’s capacity to effectively administer the affairs of our capital more than its handling of the issue of street vendors. And the current brouhaha over the vendors in the Stabroek Market area illustrates the depths of absurdity to which the municipality has sunk in the handling of this particular matter.
One gets the impression that the council’s approach to vending on the capital’s streets, pavements and municipal market areas has been informed by a peculiar mix of heavy- handedness and tolerance. The approach has actually had the effect of worsening the problem since one is never really certain as to the council’s exact position – or at least the positions of the respective councillors – on the issue of street vending.
The problem of street vending is a simple yet complex one. While the municipal by-laws pronounce specifically on vending on public thoroughfares, there is a school of thought that advocates turning a blind eye to the practice on the grounds that it represents a livelihood for hundreds of urban dwellers who have no jobs in the formal economy. It is better, some say, that they sell on the streets than to have them pursue various other illegal and distasteful methods of making a living.
The problem with this argument, of course, is that while it would be churlish, to say the least, to deny people the right to an honest living, we cannot overlook the “floodgates” effect of embracing a policy of uncontrolled street vending purely on the grounds that the people need to make a living. The fact of the matter is that uncontrolled vending in the city actually creates far more problems than it solves and at any rate one wonders whether many of the advocates of uncontrolled street vending are not more concerned with making a political point than with the welfare of the vendors themselves.
One hastens to add, of course, that street vending is an accepted part of the commercial culture in most countries and that it is highly desirable that an organized regimen of vending be created in our city, both as a vehicle for self-employment and as a tourist attraction and that if the Georgetown City Council really wishes to prove its worth it would direct some of its resources towards the creation of a vending regime that enhances the city rather than causes it to appear on a huge market square.
We have discussed the question of the creation of vending arcades exhaustively and at this juncture one can only conclude that the City Council has no intention of either developing the existing Water Street facility or creating other vending facilities in the city. At the same time the council appears to be playing a peculiar game of sometimes condoning vending on the streets and pavements and sometimes enforcing the law in the crudest possible fashion. And of course – and as some council officials openly admit – the practice of street vending is sustained through a well-established system of corrupt practices involving vendors and the city police in which those who play the game are allowed to break the law.
The current Stabroek Market area vending scenario reflects exactly the kind of confusion in which the council constantly finds itself. Having requested that the vendors in the market area erect new stalls to give the area a more uniform and a more orderly appearance the municipality now appears to have decided that it does not want the vendors on the street at all. So they have to go. Two other points are worth making. First, the recent removal of the vendors in the Stabroek area from the streets had to do with effecting road repairs.Now that the repairs have been completed and they are not being allowed to return it does give the actions of the council the appearance of being duplicitous. Secondly, since some of the evicted vendors have been selling on those spots for several years one is tempted to ask where were the council and its by-laws all those years and what exactly is it trying to prove by removing them from the street at this particular juncture.
Of course we need regulations to govern street vending and to ensure that our public thoroughfares are not overrun by higglers. More importantly, however, we need a municipality that understands its responsibilities and is serious about managing the country’s capital.
