With Christ­mas just weeks away, ven­dors on High Street, San Fer­nan­do, are anx­ious­ly await­ing a de­ci­sion by May­or Robert Par­ris on whether they will be al­lowed to sell their goods in the city’s main shop­ping area.

Last year, the ven­dors were al­lowed to sell on High Street for Christ­mas, with some re­stric­tions on lo­ca­tion and the num­ber of cots per­mit­ted.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, sev­er­al ven­dors con­duct­ing sales from their cots on the pave­ment and on the edge of the road said they were con­cerned about re­ports that the may­or in­tends to re­lo­cate them to Mu­cu­rapo Street in Jan­u­ary.

Jai Ma­haraj, who has been vend­ing on the streets for 38 years, said there are more than 100 ven­dors on High Street who pay $500 every three months to rent a spot on the left side of the road. They vend on Mon­days, Tues­days, Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days.

Ma­haraj said last Christ­mas sea­son, the for­mer may­or, Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, ini­tial­ly gave them 14 con­sec­u­tive days to vend but lat­er re­duced it to ten.

He de­scribed Mu­cu­rapo Street as a “dead area” and a “va­grant street”.

“You putting a 100 peo­ple on the bread­line, plus their fam­i­ly, that not mak­ing sense. It hard, it un­fair to peo­ple,” Ma­haraj said.

Pres­i­dent of the High Street Ven­dors’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Cheryl Lawrence, ad­mit­ted that some ven­dors were vi­o­lat­ing the agree­ment for vend­ing on the street.

She said dur­ing a meet­ing with the may­or last month, they agreed they would try to find a so­lu­tion that would be ben­e­fi­cial to all stake­hold­ers.

“I think the best op­tion is where we are right now,” Lawrence said.

“We can’t move to go any­where else be­cause the streets, right now, things are re­al slow. We just bare­ly sur­viv­ing, so to move us from here and move us down in the back on Mu­cu­rapo Street is a no, no. Any­time they put us there is to die, we have to just pre­pare for our fu­ner­al one time.”

An­oth­er ven­dor, Jas­mine Lewis-Hen­ry, ap­pealed to the may­or to al­low them to stay on High Street.

Mean­while, Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh called for street vend­ing to be reg­u­lat­ed and a prop­er place al­lo­cat­ed for the ven­dors. He said the cur­rent arrange­ment is two cots for each ven­dor, but some have dou­bled and tripled that amount, caus­ing con­ges­tion and af­fect­ing busi­ness­es.

“It be­comes un­fair to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty when they block the store en­trances. They block the pave­ment, and pedes­tri­ans who want to en­ter a busi­ness place are un­able to do so. We have no con­cern with the vend­ing, but when they in­ter­rupt busi­ness ... we don’t in­ter­rupt the ven­dors from ply­ing their own trade,” Singh said.

He al­so point­ed out that with the ven­dors oc­cu­py­ing the left side of the road and taxi stands on the right side, de­liv­ery trucks some­times have to park in the mid­dle of the road to drop off goods, adding to con­ges­tion.

Singh al­so called for army and po­lice pa­trols, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Christ­mas ap­proach­ing.

May­or Par­ris could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.