Vendors on Regent Street are calling on the Mayor and City Council to put systems in place to prevent market revenue collectors from harassing them, requesting bribes and demanding that they sell from 6am to 6pm during the Christmas season or move.
Frustrated vendors expressed their disgust to this newspaper last week, explaining that for years, they have been selling in the same spot and now they are being asked to move. The vendors, mostly women, said that every week they have been paying $1,500 which has been increased to $2,500 for the holidays. The bigger issue, however, is that they were instructed to take down the tarpaulins used to cover them and their goods, and use umbrellas instead. One woman said that these umbrellas cost between $8,500 and $15,000, a cost they are unable to cover. The umbrellas also need constant repairs which is almost the cost of another one, one woman said.
“Since Mr Hamilton Green time we using we tent night-riding. Now, they telling we can’t night-ride and we can’t use tents. They got people over so [opposite side of Regent Street] with two and three tents and they not telling them anything but that’s because they can bribe them more money. They said we can’t use tents for Christmas and that we got to sell six to six. How we supposed to mek we lil money. We is single parents, we can’t go and thief. All of a sudden the fees raised. Well, we ain’t got a problem with that but is really everything else that they doing,” a vendor, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Night-riding, she explained, is what vendors call sleeping under their tents instead of returning to their houses for the night. The idea of night-riding came about after stores began opening later into the nights for holiday shopping. Vendors who stay out late plying their trade would overnight at their spots. The woman further said that for them to move by 6pm, they have to start packing away their items by 4 o’clock in the afternoons. She said that on many days, most of their sales are after the stores would have closed for the day.
Deputy Mayor of Georgetown, Alfred Mentore in response to the complaints said that at a recent city council meeting the agreement reached stated that only temporary vendors are required to have umbrellas instead of tents and not all vendors. Whether this was understood by revenue collectors or not, Mentore noted that this will be looked into along with the complaints of bribery and the scheduled period that vendors are allowed to vend along Regent Street during the Christmas season.
As it relates to vendors’ night-riding during the holidays, the Deputy Mayor said that while he sees no problem, except for safety reasons, with vendors choosing to do this on Christmas Eve or Old Year’s Night, he cannot say the same for the other days in the season. While he did raise this at the meeting, the idea of vendors’ night-riding at any time at all was opposed by the city council, he said.
Can’t recall
Another vendor, who gave her name as Loraine, said she has been a vendor for so long, she can’t recall how long it is. She revealed that her children were young when she started selling and today, she has 12 grandchildren and two great grandchildren. “Normally, Christmas time we does come out with we thing. When you get these consignment goods, where we pay $2,000 a week to store the goods whole year, then Christmas time when you get credit goods, you got to pay more money to store the goods so fuh ease that extra $2,000 from paying rent to keep the goods, we normally sleep with the goods out here. It hard right now on us, it very hard,” she said.
Meantime, President of the Guyana Market Vendors Union, Eon Andrews, said that there are seasonal vendors who come out only during this time of the year to make a small profit while these vendors sell year-round. “What the union is concerned about is that these people are not made to move or suffer. If you have seasonal [vendors], fit them somewhere. This is a rainy season. How can you tell people they can’t put tents over their items?” he said. Andrews charged that some of the revenue collectors are corrupt and need to be replaced.
One vendor, who began selling in 2015, said she was having issues with the revenue collectors prior to now. For some time now, the woman posited, the collectors have requested that she stop selling, an issue which, according to her, stemmed from not paying the weekly fee. This, the woman explained, is a result of her not always being around to vend owing to her son who is sick. She would take her son to Suriname to get medication for his eyes. This vendor said that although she has shared with the revenue collectors why she is unavailable some weeks to pay the fee, they refuse to listen. However, after continued harassment to move, she went to the mayor who gave her permission to continue selling yet the collectors showed up last Thursday with the city police for her to stop vending.
Nanda and Tony Bissessar, a couple who operate their business along Regent Street, are also among those who lamented their plight. Nanda pointed to four tables from which she has been selling for the last several years. Recently, the revenue officials told her that she needed to cut down by two tables but if she wants to stay, then she needs to pay $20,000 a week. In addition, the woman said, the owner of the store that they sell outside of has been making their lives even more difficult as his security cameras are trained on them and he often makes complaints to the city council. These included allegations of them selling alcohol and imbibing but according to Nanda, they are allowed to sell a small quantity and on the day her husband was drinking, it was his birthday. She said too that his alcohol intake was not enough for him to be drunk. Another photo taken by the cameras showed what looked like Tony engaged in a scuffle but the woman explained that it was a fight that started across the road that ended up on her side of the street, which her husband tried parting but the store owner complained about that to City Hall also.
Tony said that after numerous visits by one particular revenue collector, who keeps threatening that she’ll “deal” with them, they were told that they had a matter pending at the town council and should visit the town clerk. However, when they went to the town clerk about having to move, the clerk informed that there was no matter there for them and she would have to now investigate.
Three years ago, the Bissessars lost their home in a fire said to be electrical in origin and ever since, they have been renting. The Christmas season is their peak sale season and having to cut back on the items they sell, will affect them tremendously.
Mentore said that the selling of alcohol by vendors is not permissible.
