Dozens of vendors have resumed their operations along Regent Street after given permission to do so by Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green—one day after they were instructed to move by the city constabulary.
“Sixty something of us went by City Hall this morning (Tuesday morning) and last night (Monday) and protest and the Mayor (Hamilton Green) tell we that we can come back,” Carla Nelson, a vendor, told Stabroek News yesterday.
Efforts made to contact Green for a comment on the issue proved futile. The Mayor is currently on vacation.
On Monday, Town Clerk Carol Sooba attempted to have the constabulary remove the vendors stationed on the pavements from Stabroek Market up to Camp Street, but the move was strongly opposed by some councillors, who opined that the persons are earning an honest living and should be left alone. As a result of the action of the City Constabulary, who acting on directions from Sooba asked the vendors to move, a number of these sellers gathered at City Hall over the two day period and protested.
When Stabroek News walked along Regent Street yesterday and met with these vendors, many questioned why they were being targeted and not those selling east of Camp Street.
Nelson said that the condition given by the Mayor was that the pavements remain clean as long as they are operating there and that they shift further in the corner. “It happened before and every time they try to move us, we go to the Mayor and we get to come back,” the vendor said, adding that she has been selling along the Regent Street pavement for seven years.
“We does feel real, real bad when they come to tell us that because most of the vendors here have three, four, five kids and some of us are single parents. I am a single parent and I does feel real bad because you have to invest your money and when you do that, you try to turn it over, then somebody always coming and tell you something and fighting you down so it is real frustrating,” the woman said.
She noted that if the city decided to permanently move the vendors, she would be satisfied if they provided another location.
In this instance, Nelson said they were not given another option but were just ordered to move.
Another vendor, Allison Griffith, said that situation was especially alarming at this time, which is the peak season of their business as school will be reopening and back to school shopping is underway. “We feel terrible, very much terrible. Just now school opening and all these vendors invest in school stuff. And just the week before school open they come and make a move like this?” she said, suggesting that they are being targeted for this reason.
The woman said that if the Mayor and City Council had maintained the initial decision to remove them, then the many businesses of the vendors would have been gravely affected.
“We woulda had to picket till they put us back. They need to be lenient with the vendors because a move like that will only create crime. People out here making a honest dollar and when they take that away, what will people do? It done got men out there thieving, they want women to go and thief too? The women out here are mother, father, grandmother, aunty, uncle and everything to their children because they ain’t got nobody to help them,” Griffith pointed out.
Karen Hinds, who sells opposite the Discount Store, stated that the employees of the store would usually dump boxes at an empty lot behind her stall, along with many other businesses. She said that they are forced to clean the mess, since the roadside vendors are the ones usually accused of littering.
“This empty lot behind here, all these boxes is Discount store does come and dump they boxes and other big business places, not us but still we is clean up in the afternoon because is we gon feel it at the end of the day,” she noted.
