Unquestionably, it is a matter of trust. City Hall and particularly Town Clerk Royston King says that the proposed temporary location of the forty or so vendors plying their trade in both Robb Street and Bourda Street in proximity to the long-abandoned Bedford Methodist School has to do with the Council’s desire to have the structure torn down on the grounds that it has become unsafe for the vendors. It would seem, however, that a handful of the more militant vendors are suspicious of this development, convinced that once they are removed the spots which they have occupied for more than two decades will be lost to them forever.
By last weekend the matter had been reduced to a tense standoff. Stabroek Business has been reliably informed that the building is now in private hands and that when, two Mondays ago, the owner turned up to put his pre-demolition plans in place the vendors simply stood their ground.
When this newspaper spoke with City Hall on Monday it was told that since then the vendors had been locked in discussion with City Mayor Hamilton Green. They have, however, restated to this newspaper their determination to stand their ground.
Stabroek Business understands that earlier in the week another attempt was to have been made to end the impasse. The owner, Stabroek News was told, had been advised by City Hall to go ahead and set up his pre-demolition infrastructure and leave to City Hall the responsibility of removing the vendors. It would not be surprising if the owner would have seen this approach as risky. There could be standoffs and things could turn ugly.
For all his tough talk the Town Clerk himself is playing with a weak hand. The vendors, somehow, have gotten it into their heads that the change of political administration affords them an even greater right to occupy the spots. More than that a pitched confrontation with the vendors this early in his tenure would do his image no good.
No one knows for sure how long the demolition exercise will take. Two months is the going estimate. Depending on when it begins that could take the exercise perilously close to Christmas and some of the vendors have told Stabroek Business that they are loathe to take any chances.
The Robb and Bourda streets junction is one of the busiest parts of the Stabroek Market area. Those vendors who occupy the Robb Street section of the junction sell groceries, eggs, bread and fruit from stalls and makeshift stands. It is a busy spot for shoppers using Robb Street as a walkway to traverse the whole of the market area.
Around the corner in Bourda, the vendors offer mostly plastic bowls and buckets, pots, pans and other kitchen utensils and rubber-soled slippers and sandals. On Saturdays a handful of itinerants turn up and place their wheelbarrows filled with greens and fruit at the junction so that if you walk east along Robb Street and want to turn right into Bourda Street you are likely to have to squeeze past those vendors. On Saturdays, particularly, it is a prime spot for trading and it is not difficult to understand why the vendors are nervous about what happens once the Bedford school is demolished.
What further complicates matters is what appears to be the ability of the Council to offer the vendors alternative accommodation….even if temporarily. As best as this newspaper can tell, based on its exchanges with City Hall, the displaced vendors will be occupying small spaces in other sections of the already cramped Bourda and Robb streets. The idea, clearly, is not to their liking.
Bourda Market, meanwhile, has its own fair share of additional woes – not least the periodic ‘beating’ that it takes in its battle against flooding, particularly in the Bourda Green area. The minimal cleaning that takes place in the trading spaces once the floodwaters recede is altogether inadequate to cope with the germs that thrive in warmer weather and which, in all likelihood, wreak havoc with the fresh loads of fruit and vegetables that are put out for sale. Then the rains come again.
