Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green has lent her voice to the recommendation that vending in the canopy section of the Stabroek Market should be stopped.
Speaking at yesterday’s statutory meeting, Chase-Green informed councillors that the City Constabulary had found a rifle “under the clock.”
She later classed as “disturbing” the fact that the area continues to be associated with criminal activity.
“… Even though we try to remove vendors from the immediate vicinity of Stabroek Market we still have under the clock to deal with… It is an eye sore and there is a recommendation, which I hope that the Market and Public Health Committee as well as the National Planning Commission will be cognisant of, so that when we are relocating vendors… those vendors will also be relocated so that the entire Stabroek Square will be left clean,” Chase-Green said.
The mayor’s recommendation joins that of Chief Constable Andrew Foo, who told a press conference on Thursday that the City Constabulary was considering asking that the area be cleared of vendors, after his officers found a rifle less than two weeks after finding break and enter tools and suspected narcotics.
According to Foo, the latest discovery underscored the seriousness of the situation around the Stabroek Market which is perceived to be a criminal hotspot.
Meanwhile Town Clerk Royston King has committed to “sanitizing” the area.
He explained to the council that while those vendors who have been granted permission to operate there by the Clerk of Markets will not be moved, the city will be acting against those who encumber the pathways and doors.
“We will not at this time be removing any stalls,” he stressed noting that any removal will be done based on a decision from either the National Planning Commission or the council.
On Friday, vendors operating in the canopy section of the market had told this newspaper that they believed the rifle reportedly discovered there Wednesday night had been planted to discredit them in a plot to remove them from that location.
The vendors claimed that the discovery was similar to what occurred in 2011, when a bomb explosion led to vendors operating on the perimeter of the Stabroek Market bus park being relocated.
“The last time, when they wanted to move the vendors that were selling over there, they used a strategy that they find a bomb.
Now, from my understanding, here now, they’re claiming that they will have to replace the vendors them that is under the canopy because they find a rifle.
Is this the strategy that council will be using all the time to get rid of vendors round the Stabroek Market?” vendor Charmaine Dowding had asked rhetorically.
President of the Market Vendors Union Eon Andrews had stated, “… I am inclined to agree with them… all of a sudden things will be staged so that people can do certain actions out here. And I hope it doesn’t have any serious repercussions down the line.”
These claims were vigorously denied by the City Constabulary.
