Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (CBC) be­gan the re­moval and re­lo­ca­tion of ven­dors from the Ch­agua­nas Ven­dors Mall along the Ch­agua­nas Main Road yes­ter­day, cit­ing years of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty and mis­use of the fa­cil­i­ty.

May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed said the site had be­come a hub for un­law­ful op­er­a­tions and re­quired ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion. He added that an as­sess­ment would now be con­duct­ed to trans­form the area in­to a taxi and maxi-taxi hub with­in the bor­ough.

A heavy po­lice pres­ence ac­com­pa­nied cor­po­ra­tion work­ers as de­mo­li­tion com­menced. Us­ing back­hoes and trucks, crews dis­man­tled the di­lap­i­dat­ed sheds one by one. Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, Luis Ruiz, a Venezue­lan na­tion­al who had been squat­ting in one of the aban­doned struc­tures, was evict­ed along with his be­long­ings.

Chair­man of the Bor­ough’s Mar­ket Com­mit­tee, Al­der­man Whit­ney Steven­son Ham­let, said the cor­po­ra­tion had been en­gag­ing ven­dors in dis­cus­sions since last year and had giv­en them am­ple no­tice of the planned re­lo­ca­tion.

“We have had ex­ten­sive di­a­logue with all these ven­dors since March last year, in­form­ing them of our planned up­grade for this space,” Steven­son Ham­let said. “There’s a lot of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty oc­cur­ring here. We can­not con­tin­ue to tol­er­ate this law­less­ness.”

She added that the coun­cil had de­cid­ed to up­grade the fa­cil­i­ty, tran­si­tion­ing it “from this hub in­to a taxi and maxi-taxi hub.”

“I host­ed nu­mer­ous meet­ings from last year to now, in­form­ing them that they would need to be re­lo­cat­ed in the up­com­ing year. They were ful­ly aware this was sup­posed to hap­pen since last De­cem­ber. I de­layed ac­tion out of con­sid­er­a­tion for the Christ­mas pe­ri­od,” she ex­plained.

Steven­son Ham­let said ad­di­tion­al meet­ings were held ear­li­er this year, dur­ing which ven­dors were of­fered al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion at the Ch­agua­nas Mar­ket, in­clud­ing a six-month waiv­er on rent.

“We have records and min­utes con­firm­ing that these ven­dors were in­formed,” she said. “They would not have been pay­ing any rent here, and the CBC would have won any court mat­ter con­cern­ing this is­sue.”

She al­so al­leged that the fa­cil­i­ty had been plagued by nu­mer­ous prob­lems, in­clud­ing il­le­gal drug ac­tiv­i­ty, sub­let­ting of booths, and squat­ting.

“We have had Venezue­lans squat­ting in­side here, and nu­mer­ous chal­lenges have arisen over the years,” she said, not­ing that ven­dors had op­er­at­ed with­out pay­ing rent or ac­cess­ing ba­sic util­i­ties such as elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter.

De­spite the re­lo­ca­tion ef­forts, some ven­dors re­sist­ed, stag­ing protests and re­quest­ing more time to va­cate. Ven­dor Natasha Phillips ar­gued that a court or­der stip­u­lat­ed that ven­dors could not be re­moved un­less suit­able al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion was pro­vid­ed, claim­ing there was no avail­able space at the Ch­agua­nas Mar­ket.

How­ev­er, Steven­son Ham­let main­tained that arrange­ments had al­ready been made.

“There are con­tracts in place for all ven­dors to ped­dle their goods at the Ch­agua­nas Mar­ket,” she said.