Chaos erupt­ed in down­town Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day af­ter­noon when Char­lotte Street ven­dors be­gan to force­ful­ly re­sist at­tempts by the po­lice to re­move them. Around 4 pm yes­ter­day en­raged ven­dors blocked Char­lotte Street, be­tween In­de­pen­dence Square and Queen Street, with crates and large rub­bish bins, block­ing a trac­tor hired to clear the area. They be­gan chant­i­ng "we want the streets" and "Lee Sing re­mem­ber where you came from." More than 20 po­lice of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, along with T&T De­fence Force per­son­nel, were called in when the sit­u­a­tion turned vi­o­lent. Ven­dors be­gan to ri­ot when of­fi­cers tried to move their bar­ri­cade and clear the area. A ven­dor, iden­ti­fied on­ly as "Andy", was es­cort­ed away by the po­lice af­ter in an act of protest he be­gan pound­ing on the trac­tor with his fists and scream­ing at the po­lice.

Af­ter a bot­tle was thrown at the po­lice, a fight broke out be­tween the po­lice and ven­dors. A mem­ber of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch fired two rounds of warn­ing shots in­to the air, fur­ther en­rag­ing the ven­dors, who be­gan to chant "Gun­shots is my an­them" and "Why y'all doh use your guns to fight crime." When the crowd re­fused to move the po­lice threat­ened to use tear gas. The crowd be­gan to scat­ter when a mem­ber of the ri­ot po­lice walked in­to the crowd with a tear gas gun. On­look­ers and ven­dors mad­ly scram­bled up the road in a fren­zy, while some tried to es­cape in­to near­by stores. Even­tu­al­ly the crowd re­treat­ed up to the cor­ner of Queen and Char­lotte Streets. Char­lotte Street clothes ven­dor Na­toya Dick­son said Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing's plan to re­lo­cate ven­dors to the Sal­va­tori Build­ing was cru­el and un­fair.

A ven­dor, known as "Andy", is es­cort­ed away by a mem­ber of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch yes­ter­day.

Help­less­ly watch­ing the trac­tor rip through the ven­dors bar­ri­cade, she said all ven­dors were ask­ing was to be able to con­tin­ue sell­ing for the two weeks be­fore Christ­mas, a time when there sales were the high­est. Dick­son said ven­dors had paid their month­ly rent of $600 for the month of De­cem­ber and re­fused to be move. She said the city cor­po­ra­tion was ask­ing for ven­dors to pay $650 a week at the new ven­dor-des­ig­nat­ed area. Dick­son said the ma­jor­i­ty of ven­dors were sin­gle moth­ers and this time of year was when they earned the most. Com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Lennox Smith said Lee Sing's plan to up­root the ven­dors just days be­fore Christ­mas was "bar­bar­ic and de­signed to fur­ther pau­perism." Ven­dor Maris­sa Fran­cis said all ven­dors want­ed was for Lee Sing to al­low them to re­main on Char­lotte Street for the next two weeks. She said: "All we ask­ing is for Louis Lee Sing to give us the next ten days, so we could make some mon­ey for Christ­mas."

Ven­dor Daphine Mar­shall who re­ceived five charges for al­leged­ly us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and block­ing the po­lice when they came to clear her stall, said ac­cord­ing to con­trac­tu­al agree­ment be­tween the ven­dors and the city, ven­dors can sell from Thurs­day to Sat­ur­day from 8 am to 10 pm.

She said, how­ev­er, since 2006 ven­dors had been al­lowed to vend every­day for the two weeks lead­ing up to Christ­mas. Mar­shall, who showed the me­dia a copy of the agree­ment, point­ed out that un­der sec­tion six ven­dors were not al­lowed to hold oth­er forms of em­ploy­ment while reg­is­tered as city ven­dors. She said, there­fore, vend­ing was the sole source of in­come for many and hav­ing their stalls tak­en down put them on the bread­line. Ven­dors al­so al­leged po­lice of­fi­cers had used un­nec­es­sary vi­o­lence against them.

A ri­ot po­lice of­fi­cer pre­pares to dis­perse the protest­ing ven­dors with tear gas yes­ter­day af­ter small fights broke out on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain. Pho­tos: Mar­cus Gon­za­les

Ker­ron Al­ber­ty said he and his broth­er were help­ing a rel­a­tive clear out her stall when they were con­front­ed by the po­lice. He claimed the po­lice pro­ceed­ed to beat them with their canes which left vis­i­ble marks around their bod­ies. Ven­dors, who spoke with the me­dia, said they would not leave and would con­tin­ue to protest through­out the week. In the crowd, a city coun­cil mem­ber who did not want to be named, said she could not un­der­stand why the ven­dors did not want to move. She said a place had been set up for them and she did not un­der­stand why there was so much protest. Pressed about the in­ci­dence of po­lice's warn­ing shots and the ven­dors' claims of vi­o­lence, she said she did not want to com­ment and walked off in­to the crowd.

May­or re­sponds

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day's in­ci­dent on Char­lotte Street yes­ter­day Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing said the ven­dors dis­re­gard­ed the arrange­ments made by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion. He said the ven­dors were orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to op­er­ate for three days - Thurs­day to Sat­ur­day. How­ev­er, he said, the ven­dors want­ed to work ten days. "That is not pos­si­ble. We have oth­er stake­hold­ers to look af­ter," Lee Sing said. He added some ven­dors "came and set up camp last night (Sun­day)." Lee Sing said the ven­dors be­came vi­o­lent and po­lice were forced to in­ter­vene to main­tain or­der. He said they nor­mal­ly op­er­at­ed for the three days "un­in­ter­rupt­ed." He said busi­ness­men on the street al­so need­ed to be giv­en a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty for their busi­ness­es. Lee Sing said: "It im­pacts on oth­er stake­hold­ers too. The ven­dors have dis­re­gard­ed the agree­ments made with the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion."