Vendors who were selling along the street leading to the Skeldon Market looked on in anguish as the Ministry of Public Works and constables from the Corriverton Town Council dismantled and burnt their stalls yesterday.
The demolition exercise which entered its second day started around 9 am with workers using sledgehammers and crowbars.
The stalls were torn down and piled into a corner and the workers proceeded to douse them with gasoline and set them alight. There was a heavy police presence.
The angry vendors said the workers just told them to “pack up, pack up” and got down to the task. Some of the vendors ran “helter-skelter” with their produce.
Rudolph February, a fruit and provision vendor told Stabroek News that they were not issued with notices to remove and even though some stalls were broken on Tuesday they continued to vend.
Meanwhile, he said notices were served to vendors who ply their trade along the public road, to clear the roadways but not all of the vendors complied. Two weeks ago the remaining vendors were forcibly removed.
He said though, that almost two years ago he and the other vendors who are represented by Senior Counsel Marcel Crawford were summonsed to appear at the court. Attorney-at-law, Adrian Anamayah is representing the town council.
The matter is still engaging the Springlands Magistrate’s Court and they are scheduled to reappear next Tuesday. The vendors were also summonsed before the court on two previous occasions but both matters were discharged.
Corriverton Mayor, Roy Baijnauth, when contacted told Stabroek News that the matters were withdrawn because the charges were “wrong.” However they were “corrected” and filed again for a third time.
With regard to the notices, the mayor said the ministry which is rehabilitating the roads in the town had served notices for all of the roadside vendors to remove.
He said some of the vendors refused to accept the notices and that the council has records to prove who received it and who did not.
He pointed out that the town’s by-laws state that street vending should not be allowed and described the vendors as stubborn. He said the stalls were burnt to ensure that the vendors do not go back to the spots.
He said the council is not charging the street vendors any money “although we have to clean the area. If we collect the money then it means we are legalizing them.”
The mayor stated that the other vendors who occupy legal spots in the market are “pressuring us and we owe them an obligation so we had to do something.”
While accepting that the matter is engaging the court, Baijnauth told this newspaper that the court did not stop the council from removing the vendors.
Some of the street vendors also said that they had stalls in the market where they sold dry goods but said that because of the court proceedings, the city council nailed those stalls down one month ago.
Their merchandise has also been locked up in the stalls and according to them they were “forced” to sign a document which stated that if their stalls were broken into the council was not responsible.
Baijnauth said the vendors indeed have stalls in the market and have been “registered” but said the stalls were nailed down because they owe huge sums of money to the council. He said too that some of the vendors were only using the stalls in the market to store the goods and would take them out and sell them on the road.
He said one of the reasons for the vendors selling on the street was because they felt that their customers would take a long time to locate them. He noted that they “cannot get preference above the persons who are paying… We want a level playing field.”
He hoped that the vendors “would see the wisdom in this whole thing and do not go back [on the street]. If they owe money they should come in and discuss it at council level and we would try to satisfy them.”
Despite the mayor’s claim, some of the vendors said the council does not have space in the market for them. They said jobs are hard to find and suggested that they council should have allowed them to sell on mobile stalls which could be removed during the night.
