By Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter
A section of the roadway at the corner of West Queen Street, downtown Kingston is now clear leading to the Victoria Jubilee Market, months after the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) cleared vendors' stalls from the area. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
ORGANISERS OF the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC)-led campaign to get vendors off the streets of downtown Kingston are claiming success, listing "persistence and determination" as the key to the accomplishment.
Stall vendors are off no-vending streets like Beckford, Princess and some from sections of parade are kept at bay by the police and co-operation of the vendors' associations, Town Clerk Errol Greene, said.
CRUMBLING LIVELIHOODS
But while downtown is now "shoppers paradise," and according to Jamaica Chamber of Commerce president, Michael Ammar Jr., "safer than ever," some vendors' cries remain the same that their livelihood has crumbled.
Yesterday, two months after clean-up efforts in the area, Princess and Beckford Streets and parts of Parade remained clear, with markets like the Jubilee and Redemption arcades chock full and the vending streets heavy with traffic.
One vendor said he used to sell on Princess Street but had migrated with others to the corner of West Queen and Princess Streets from where he now peddles wares. He said that most of the vendors downtown had either gone to Half-Way Tree or to other sections of the city.
"I don't know where most of them turn," he said. "But I know that some just walk around and kotch anywhere. Lanes like Luke Lane full full, cram to the limit."
He said that all were aware - and that many had experienced firsthand - that those that sell outside the designated areas could be prosecuted.
Further up West Queen Street, a group of women vendors lamented their misfortune at having to cope with harassment from the police daily while they try to sell.
SAFETY ON THE STREETS
"Some people take it to heart and gone home to sit down," one of the women said. "Them spray tear gas at we; they take we things and we have to pay up to $30,000 to get back a barrel. People want to sell, and though we don't want to sell in the sun, we feel 100 per cent safer out here than in the arcades," she said.
Another said that just last year, an old woman had gone to use the Oxford Mall arcade to urinate and was raped.
The women cried for more security and improved sanitary conveniences before they would move in.
And indeed when the news team visited the Oxford Mall arcade, the scent of stale urine was almost overpowering. So too it was in the crammed Victoria Jubilee market, where one of the women said she had a stall that she had to abandon because of the stench.
Egeton Newman, consultant for the vendor representative group United Vendors' Association which represents some 2000 vendors, said that he was appealing to Local Government Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, to look into making the arcades more attractive for habitation. He is asking her to help the vendors for whom selling is the only option.
"The arcades are a haven for the homeless, thieves, rats, it's not proper," he said.
The Town Clerk has maintained that the arcades - many of which remain empty - which were renovated at $20 million in 2001, are adequate to hold the vendors who sell in downtown Kingston.
He said that the police, who are in small numbers, "have a mandate to stay there (downtown)" as long as it takes.
Mr. Ammar said that the vendor removal was 90 per cent complete, and was "one step in many" in the downtown Kingston re-development plan initiated last December by the Prime Minister.
"It has been holding up," he said. "Many vendor groups are co-operating, many of them are giving it a chance. Since the whole relocation, security in the area has improved significantly, people are more comfortable coming to shop now."
He said that an interim board for the non-profit company being set up to spearhead the re-development has been appointed, and the group is working at housekeeping matters.
"The interim board has started to meet, we're in the process of setting up the company and the structure, basic housekeeping stuff," he said.
By the end of the month, he said, the company will start on plans to improve the district.
The aim is to restore order to downtown, and transform the city into an entertainment and commercial hub.
