Sascha Wil­son

Even as San Fer­nan­do street ven­dors were seek­ing the in­ter­ven­tion of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma to al­low them to vend on High Street for the rest of the Yule­tide sea­son, May­or Mar­lene Coudray was stand­ing firm on her de­ci­sion to ban the ac­tiv­i­ty. Yes­ter­day, Coudray made it clear that she and the coun­cil would con­tin­ue to sup­port their ze­ro tol­er­ance for il­le­gal vend­ing. "I wish every­body who can au­tho­rise vend­ing well...I can­not au­tho­rise an il­le­gal act," she said.

The ven­dors have been ask­ing Coudray to "have a heart" like her Port-of-Spain coun­ter­part Louis Lee Sing, who re­con­sid­ered his no-vend­ing po­si­tion and al­lowed the Char­lotte Street ven­dors to sell on the streets. They al­so ap­pealed to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter for help."We wait­ing to hear Mr Shar­ma an­swer to­mor­row (Fri­day)," said pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Ven­dors As­so­ci­a­tion Roger Jack, who added that Shar­ma seemed in­clined to as­sist them. Jack said Shar­ma sent of­fi­cials yes­ter­day to vis­it the area where they want to ped­dle their goods on the left side of High Street yes­ter­day. While they await clear­ance, though, sev­er­al ven­dors still stole a chance to sell on High Street. Shar­ma said he sent his peo­ple to view the area the ven­dors want­ed to sell.

Not want­i­ng to com­mit him­self on whether he would be as­sist­ing the ven­dors, he said he ad­vised them to seek an­oth­er au­di­ence with the may­or and speak with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. He said there was no need for him to speak with Coudray at this time. Coudray's tough stance is in con­trast to Lee Sing, who had ini­tial­ly im­posed a ban on street vend­ing on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, and had even at­tempt­ed to re­move the ven­dors. How­ev­er, he lat­er an­nounced that ven­dors would be al­lowed to sell next Tues­day to Wednes­day and on Christ­mas and Box­ing Day.

Lee Sing made the de­ci­sion af­ter a meet­ing with Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North, Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald. Af­ter lis­ten­ing to the ven­dors' con­cerns, Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley man­dat­ed Mc­Don­ald to meet with Lee Sing to ask the coun­cil to re­con­sid­er its de­ci­sion to ban vend­ing from Mon­day to Wednes­day along Char­lotte Street, dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. A tough stance has al­so been adopt­ed by the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion which has an­nounced a ze­ro tol­er­ance pol­i­cy to street vend­ing dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. The bor­ough has pro­vid­ed ac­com­mo­da­tion for 250 ven­dors at the site of the old Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre along the Ch­agua­nas Main Road. It will ac­com­mo­date ven­dors un­til the end of Jan­u­ary.