Al­though ven­dors op­er­at­ing along Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, wel­comed the ad­di­tion­al days to ply their trade dur­ing the run-up to Christ­mas - a few of them yes­ter­day ex­pressed reser­va­tions as they claimed the stag­gered days would cost them more.

Re­spond­ing to the an­nounce­ment by Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne dur­ing last Tues­day’s statu­to­ry meet­ing at the City Cor­po­ra­tion that ad­di­tion­al vend­ing days had been added to the cal­en­dar at no cost to them, ven­dor Sharon Daniel said she has to spend $150 a day to have some­one pack up her stall.

This she claimed, would put a se­ri­ous dent in her prof­its.

Ex­plain­ing the pro­posed arrange­ment would leave her and her son who op­er­ates along­side her, in a more dis­ad­van­ta­geous po­si­tion, she said while the move had brought smiles to many, it came at a price.

Ap­proval has been giv­en for ven­dors in good fi­nan­cial stand­ing, to op­er­ate on Char­lotte Street from De­cem­ber 12-14, 17-24, and 27-31.

While this arrange­ment was “nice,” sev­er­al ven­dors said the break up of as­signed days was the is­sue.

Daniel, who has been vend­ing in the cap­i­tal for more than 40 years, said the cur­rent arrange­ment was, “Pack up, put out...pack up, put out.”

Daniel said they would have pre­ferred to have two weeks of con­sec­u­tive days to sell, where they wouldn’t have to pack up their goods and dis­man­tle their tents dai­ly.

“We are ac­cus­tomed to get­ting the chance of the week be­fore Christ­mas which now, we ain’t get­ting the week be­fore Christ­mas which is next week...so now we have to pack all these goods here Sun­day and then come back out on Mon­day. On the oth­er hand, is we have to pay some­body to pack up. A man to pack up this thing here is cost me $150.”

She said the fi­nan­cial cost was bur­den­some for many, who were look­ing to make a quick turnover for the hol­i­days.

In­di­cat­ing she was not hap­py with the pro­posed arrange­ment, Daniel said ven­dors had been los­ing year-round and it wasn’t right.

The fi­nal de­ci­sion she ad­mit­ted was with the May­or. Mean­while, Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Char­lotte Street Ven­dors As­so­ci­a­tion, Ju­nior Lewis – who has been op­er­at­ing since the street vend­ing pro­gramme be­gan in 2006 – said they usu­al­ly get two weeks be­fore Christ­mas to sell straight through where they can make ex­tra mon­ey.

Re­veal­ing they paid $900 per month to vend, he said the ad­di­tion­al days would, “Help us to boost our in­come to go through the next year.”

Pressed to say if he was hap­py with the pro­posed arrange­ment and ad­di­tion­al days, he said, “We woul­da like more but we hap­py with this.”

Adding their voice to the cho­rus com­mend­ing Al­leyne for the in­creas­ing vend­ing days, the Char­lotte Street Her­itage Root Vend­ing As­so­ci­a­tion said, “We are pleased to hear of the Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion to work on ad­dress­ing the con­cerns of ven­dors and to in­crease the num­ber of days for our mem­bers to sell dur­ing this Christ­mas sea­son. This shows sig­nif­i­cant sup­port by the May­or and Coun­cil for small busi­ness own­ers.”

A team led by the as­so­ci­a­tion’s vice pres­i­dent Randy George met with Al­leyne on De­cem­ber 10, to dis­cuss mat­ters af­fect­ing ven­dors on Char­lotte Street.