Aba Luke

They've been told that their pres­ence was an eye-sore and a non-com­pli­ment to an ad­ja­cent struc­ture, that has been com­pared to an igloo by one present gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial. They've been chased by po­lice of­fi­cers, but their liveli­hoods mean more to them than ridicule, and for that rea­son, they are in­tent on fight­ing to the last. Con­fused? Don't be, be­cause you may have ac­tu­al­ly savoured the taste of one of their lo­cal del­i­ca­cies on any giv­en day. The ven­dors who align their tents with the south-east end of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, pro­vide a wealth of ap­petis­ing de­lights for hun­dreds of pa­trons on a dai­ly ba­sis. Yet, there are no laws that of­fer them se­cu­ri­ty to con­tin­ue ply­ing their re­spec­tive trades.

Good food but no guar­an­tee

From buf­fa­lo wings, to bake and shark; pholourie and hot pies to chick­en wings and french fries; pelau and corn-soup to jerk chick­en, and count­less oth­er dish­es all avail­able to tan­ta­lise and sat­is­fy any food lover. The 25 ven­dors have faced un­cer­tain­ty since vend­ing be­gan around the Queens Park Sa­van­nah, some 15 years ago. Samuel Hen­ry sells his tasty buf­fa­lo wings at the lo­ca­tion from 5 pm to mid­night every day ex­cept on Mon­days. He said he catered to some 200 per­sons every day, as did many of his coun­ter­parts at the same venue.

How­ev­er, he ran the risk of be­ing chased out of the area be­cause there has nev­er been any le­gal au­tho­ri­sa­tion giv­en to ven­dors there. "Pri­or to the elec­tions, there was a move by the PNM to move us out of the sa­van­nah," Hen­ry said, adding that he un­der­stood the di­rec­tive came from the then Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. "We de­cid­ed to protest against them, and we went to the Works su­per­vi­sor. He told us he got in­struc­tions from the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture that no vend­ing was al­lowed. Signs were put up and po­lice even tried to re­move us on one oc­ca­sion but be­cause the me­dia was present, they backed off."

New gov­er­nance shines light of hope

Hen­ry ex­plained that the area the ven­dors were cur­rent­ly us­ing was au­tho­rised by the Hor­ti­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety, which falls un­der the stew­ard­ship of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. He said when calls were made for their re­moval pri­or to May 24, the ven­dors were ap­proached by an at­tor­ney for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, who promised them she'd help in what­ev­er way she could in her ca­pac­i­ty as an at­tor­ney, to en­sure they weren't re­moved. "Things even­tu­al­ly died down be­cause of elec­tions though," he said. Now, with elec­tions over and a new gov­ern­ment in pow­er, the group is hope­ful that their al­lot­ted spaces at the renowned lo­ca­tion will be le­git­i­mate­ly hand­ed over to them.

"We formed an as­so­ci­a­tion pri­or to the sit­u­a­tion but it was not reg­is­tered. We were ad­vised by some­one in the Le­gal Af­fairs sec­tor, to agree up­on a name for the as­so­ci­a­tion and have it reg­is­tered for fu­ture di­a­logue on the mat­ter," Hen­ry said.

The as­so­ci­a­tion meets on the first Tues­day of every month at the sa­van­nah, to dis­cuss plans for le­git­imis­ing their op­er­a­tions. They al­so have a lot of ideas as it re­lates to the de­vel­op­ment of the space. Hen­ry said the Hor­ti­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety's on­ly re­quest was that the ven­dors main­tain clean sur­round­ings and re­frain from mov­ing be­yond the al­lowed area. This, he as­sured had been re­spect­ed. How­ev­er, with still no word on le­git­imis­ing the op­er­a­tions at the sa­van­nah, they know that they can be chased away at any time.

"We un­der­stand the gov­ern­ment is go­ing through its hon­ey­moon pe­ri­od, so we want them to set­tle in first be­fore we can ask for di­a­logue with them," Hen­ry said. He high­light­ed that pri­or to the elec­tions, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Tourism Min­istry came to the area and said the venue was a good one to en­cour­age tourists to par­take in lo­cal cui­sine.

When most restau­rants are closed at night, fam­i­lies can come to the Sa­van­nah for food they love. "What we need is to try to in­cor­po­rate spon­sors to spon­sor bet­ter look­ing tents and with part­ner­ship with the gov­ern­ment, bet­ter ameni­ties like run­ning wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty, "Hen­ry vi­su­alised. He in­di­cat­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion's will­ing­ness to im­ple­ment strate­gies to beau­ti­fy the fa­cil­i­ty, say­ing, "Just as what they did at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, they can re-pave the strip at the Sa­van­nah. The ven­dors each oc­cu­py ten by 20 tents, but it would be bet­ter if seats with um­brel­las, run­ning wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty, and a lit­tle area for a stage where new artistes can per­form and de­vel­op their tal­ent were added. We can in­cor­po­rate cul­ture, tourism and the ideals of fam­i­ly to­geth­er­ness," he said.

Hen­ry al­so high­light­ed how such a de­vel­op­ment could as­sist bud­ding ven­dors to be­gin busi­ness­es of their own, ex­plain­ing that there could be stip­u­lat­ed time giv­en to ven­dors for the growth of their busi­ness, be­fore they moved on to per­ma­nent lo­ca­tions. With hopes high, the Sa­van­nah ven­dors look for­ward to a cor­dial meet­ing with the re­spec­tive au­thor­i­ties on the mat­ter. In the mean­time, they are as­sur­ing that hot, tasty ap­pe­tis­ers and meals are avail­able on the strip from 5 pm to mid­night, every­day.