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Monday, February 24, 2025

Chaguanas market vendors demand more space

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1794 days ago
20200328
Angry Chaguanas Market vendors during yesterday’s protest at the facility.

Angry Chaguanas Market vendors during yesterday’s protest at the facility.

Shastri Boodan

Around 15 ven­dors op­er­at­ing at the Ch­agua­nas Mar­ket are de­mand­ing space in­side the fa­cil­i­ty to con­duct busi­ness. The mar­ket re­opened Fri­day fol­low­ing a three-day clo­sure to sani­tise the fa­cil­i­ty.

Un­der the new op­er­a­tions, ven­dors are de­barred from sell­ing on the cor­ri­dors and oc­cu­py­ing spaces that can cre­ate cramped con­di­tions that would make it eas­i­er for the COVID-19 virus to spread.

Irate ven­dors told Guardian Me­dia that they too have to earn a liv­ing and were be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly.

Guardian learned that some ven­dors were re­fus­ing stalls and pre­ferred to sell on the cor­ri­dors.

Fresh pro­duce ven­dor Har­daye Ner­a­jan said she has been sell­ing at the fa­cil­i­ty for the last 20 years in the same spot.

“When this mar­ket was built it didn’t have suf­fi­cient stalls for every­body and cer­tain places on the lay-by the mar­ket clerk as­signed to peo­ple over the years they have al­ways tried to move us and sit­u­a­tion come back to where it was be­fore. The last may­or (Gopaul Bood­han) tried to move us again, no place for us. He said he would have marked out the place for us to sell in an or­der­ly fash­ion. He didn’t do it be­cause at the time he said the work­ers was strik­ing at the bor­ough. We un­der­stand this pan­dem­ic, we see­ing all over the world what is tak­ing place, peo­ple are dy­ing, dis­ease is spread­ing. We are will­ing to co­op­er­ate in the bor­ough to see that this pan­dem­ic doesn’t spread in the Cen­tral area. But at the same time we are farm­ers, we are food pro­duc­ers we need an in­come.”

Ner­an­jan al­so knocked the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat for not get­ting any re­lief for farm­ers. She said in­cen­tives are be­ing an­nounced for ho­tels while farm­ers are be­ing left in the dark.

Oth­er ven­dors sell­ing dou­bles and In­di­an sweets com­plained that they should not have been re­lo­cat­ed to an area that was once used to sell fresh crabs and meat. Fresh beef Ven­dor Ash­ton Ali said the sys­tem was work­ing all right for cus­tomers but some ven­dors were dis­placed. Ali said they meat ven­dors were hap­py that the bor­ough fixed the chiller a few months ago and are de­sirous of hav­ing the abat­toir re-opened.

Con­sumers were hap­py for the free space. Joey Mc Mil­lian said he felt com­fort­able shop­ping in the mar­ket since the area no longer has too much-cramped spaces where cus­tomers have to make phys­i­cal con­tact.

May­or Van­dana Mo­hit said by Mon­day all ven­dors should have a space to op­er­ate. Mo­hit said some ven­dors have got­ten a stall but are still de­mand­ing to ped­dle their goods from the cor­ri­dor. Mo­hit con­firmed that 15 per­sons have been dis­placed. She said a num­ber of street ven­dors al­so stormed the mar­ket in a ditch to grab a spot at the mar­ket. Mo­hit said the moves were made to pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Ch­agua­nas. She said many are un­aware of the se­ri­ous­ness of the Covid 19 dis­ease and its im­pli­ca­tions.

Mo­hit said, “These are my peo­ple I would not leave them strand­ed.”

Mo­hit said per­sons sell­ing dou­bles would be re­lo­cat­ed to their old area.

“At this point are faced with a pan­dem­ic. We have had a sec­ond death re­port­ed in T&T and we need to take pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures.”


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