Jensen La Vende

Dou­bles ven­dor Latisha Nor­eiga is ex­plor­ing her le­gal op­tions af­ter city po­lice re­moved her stall from the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade on Wednes­day.

Nor­eiga ex­plained that while she once op­er­at­ed as an il­le­gal ven­dor, she had since be­come le­git­i­mate af­ter the City Cor­po­ra­tion of­fered her and oth­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rent des­ig­nat­ed spots on the prom­e­nade for $2,400 per month—a chance she ea­ger­ly ac­cept­ed.

“We had a meet­ing Wednes­day morn­ing, and we were sup­posed to meet with the may­or, but he didn’t show up,” Nor­eiga said.

“At the meet­ing, the di­rec­tor from the project man­ag­er’s of­fice told us that those who were up-to-date with pay­ments could re­sume vend­ing im­me­di­ate­ly. So I went out, start­ed vend­ing, and then city po­lice came. They said I wasn’t al­lowed to vend. I showed them my cer­tifi­cate and my re­ceipt show­ing I’d paid, but they said it was ir­rel­e­vant and ar­rest­ed me.”

Al­though she did not dis­close a spe­cif­ic fig­ure, Nor­eiga said she suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial loss­es from be­ing un­able to trade on Wednes­day.

She al­so claimed that while all her be­long­ings were even­tu­al­ly re­turned, her tent was dam­aged while in the cus­tody of the city po­lice. Nor­eiga said her next steps will be guid­ed by ad­vice from her at­tor­ney, Ger­ald Ramdeen.

At­tempts to reach Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.

De­spite the set­back, Nor­eiga said she re­mains com­mit­ted to op­er­at­ing legal­ly on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade.

“I will con­tin­ue sell­ing on the prom­e­nade as long as I have per­mis­sion,” she said. “As long as there’s a project go­ing on, I want to be part of it, be­cause we are sur­vivors, and this is our liveli­hood.”

She added that vend­ing legal­ly in Port-of-Spain is some­thing she deeply val­ues and has no in­ten­tion of re­turn­ing to il­le­gal op­er­a­tions.

“I want to con­tin­ue sell­ing in Port-of-Spain. That’s why I try my best to do the right thing and en­sure my pay­ments are up-to-date and every­thing is in or­der. I have staff, and they’re all from around Port-of-Spain.

“I try to em­ploy peo­ple lo­cal­ly so that we’re like a fam­i­ly and every­one has a chance to sur­vive. Many of the peo­ple who work for me would be out of a job for a long time if they weren’t work­ing with me. We’re a fam­i­ly, and I try to make it com­fort­able for my staff, and they’re com­fort­able work­ing here.”