Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Ven­dors at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah (QPS) are an­gry over be­ing or­dered to tem­porar­i­ly re­lo­cate their booths to ac­com­mo­date the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, Agri-Ex­po, Pan & Pow­der, and In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions.

The QPS ven­dors re­ceived no­tice on Tues­day to re­lo­cate to an area be­hind the ground’s wash­room stalls be­fore mid­night on Wednes­day, ac­cord­ing to Michael Williams, pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Lo­cal Culi­nary Am­bas­sadors (AL­CA), who rep­re­sents them. He said both him­self and oth­er ven­dors refuse to move un­til a com­pro­mise that meets their de­mands is made be­tween the as­so­ci­a­tion and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture . 

Williams ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion over a lack of light­ing on the grounds, say­ing that it was a safe­ty is­sue and claimed that it was be­ing done to them ma­li­cious­ly. He said he and his col­leagues dis­cussed amend­ments to the let­ter re­quest­ing their re­lo­ca­tion, but re­mained adamant that they would not move. 

“The en­tire Sa­van­nah is well lit, but on­ly the lights bor­der­ing the food court are out, and we find that very, very strange,” Williams said. 

How­ev­er, a lack of light­ing is not the on­ly prob­lem they are up­set about. Ac­cord­ing to Williams, ven­dors are be­ing asked by the min­istry to re­lo­cate to an area be­hind the wash­room stalls that he de­scribed as a “dun­geon”—for a pe­ri­od of 40 days. 

“The lo­ca­tion is be­hind my back in the dun­geon, down in­side that lit­tle gut­ter where there is a lot of mud, there is no in­fra­struc­ture, there is no paved area, there are no plat­forms, noth­ing. And I am def­i­nite­ly not go­ing to al­low the mem­ber­ship of the or­gan­i­sa­tion to move be­cause it is an un­fair and un­just re­quest to tell mem­bers of our or­gan­i­sa­tion, who have an agree­ment with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, to go back there in the mud,” Williams said. He said the re­quest was a breach of an orig­i­nal agree­ment be­tween the ACLA and the Min­istry. 

Op­er­a­tions man­ag­er of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah Food Court and own­er of D’ Grill Boyz, Shel­don Mar­cano, be­lieves that the ven­dors are be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against.

“We have been here for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years with peo­ple pass­ing here for Eman­ci­pa­tion and not mov­ing. Why should we move for 40 days for peo­ple to pass here for an hour, if so long? This is vic­it­mi­sa­tion,” Mar­cano said, adding that on Wednes­day the min­istry called them to set up a meet­ing for 5 pm but had want­ed to do so with­out cre­at­ing a “con­flict”.

Ven­dor Sade Daniels of B&F Juices told Guardian Me­dia that the lack of light­ing had been plagu­ing her col­leagues for close to three months, with­out any sign of im­prove­ment. She al­so voiced con­cern that it was an open in­vi­ta­tion to crim­i­nals amidst T&T’s wors­en­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

“We feel ter­ri­ble about it, be­cause a lot of the ven­dors here have kids, and for a lot of us this is all we have. I think my busi­ness is go­ing to fall flat, hon­est­ly, be­cause a lot of our cus­tomers ex­pect us to be here, and if over a pro­longed pe­ri­od, they’ll prob­a­bly give up on the busi­ness. We’re hop­ing to find a so­lu­tion to all of this,” Daniel, who is a moth­er of four,  said.

At­tempts for com­ment from the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Kaz­im Ho­sein, were un­suc­cess­ful.