High Court Judge Jo-Ann Barlow has ordered the City Engineer to remove all encumbrances from in front of the Collections Boutique and Gift Centre located at 27 Water St, Georgetown.
This is according to attorney for proprietor of the business—Siand Dhurjon—who in a press release said that his client, Dian Balram, was being impeded from accessing her business premises by, among other things, vendors.
According to Dhurjon, the Court found favour with his argument that Bylaw 10 made under the Municipal and District Councils Act, places a statutory duty on the City Engineer to ensure that pavements, streets and parapets are unencumbered by persons placing things on them.
Dhurjon said that among the things blocking his client’s business were vehicles, carts, drays, barrels and boxes.
In a suit against the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, the lawyer said that his client to no avail had for years written the Council on numerous occasions and visited to complain of not only her inability to freely access her business, but that of her customers as well.
He said that the woman has been unable to drive her vehicle onto the premises, and companies making deliveries to her have been impeded in the same way also.
According to Dhurjon, counsel for the M&CC had said that when staff visited the premises they found no encumbrances to the premises, but had indicated that the City Council “was doing all that they could to clear up the area.”
Dhurjon said that the Court was, however, subsequently informed by an officer of the Council that the entryway to the business premises was blocked.
He said that while the Council indicated that it had removed a vendor from in front of the disputed location, it went further to advance that it had no obligation under the law to remove mobile items.
To this, however, Dhurjon said he argued that Bylaw 10 makes no distinction between fixed or mobile things and requires the pavements, streets, and footpaths of the City to be unencumbered.
He said that it was against this background that Justice Barlow ordered that the City Engineer remove all remaining encumbrances in the vicinity of his client’s boutique.
