Corporate Area street food vendors watching for Crab Circle fallout
Published:Monday | October 9, 2023 | 12:09 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
Local street food vendors have, since last Thursday, been wracked with concern that a viral video that resulted in the shutdown of popular spot, Crab Circle, in Kingston, could change the general image and reputation of the industry.
The video, which showed one of the vendors at Crab Circle engaged in an unsanitary act, resulted in the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department temporarily closing down the site and having it sanitised. The closure was ordered last Thursday for non-compliance with the Public Health (Food Handling) Regulations 1998.
Since the video’s release and throughout the weekend, there has been widespread outrage and condemnation as well as numerous memes and declarations from Jamaicans that they will never eat from street food vendors again.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), street food is defined as ready-to-eat foods and beverages that are prepared and/or sold by vendors located in the streets or similar locations. They are said to represent a significant part of urban food consumption for millions of low- and-middle-income consumers in urban areas daily.
The vendors at Crab Circle are well known for their soup, corn, and crab offerings.
Since the incident, the offending vendor, Alice Wugh, has sought to explain that she had an episode of diarrhoea after drinking a beer. This, she said, caused her to lose control of her bowels leaving her with no choice but to relieve herself at the spot where she also prepares meals for the public’s consumption.
The incident, she added, was necessitated by the absence of bathroom facilities at the location.
In addition to expressing outrage over what was captured on the viral video, Jamaicans have utilised various social media platforms to express their further disapproval of Wugh’s apparent lack of remorse for her actions.
The future of Crab Circle is now in question as many believe the vendors will be unable to attract the large volume of customers they once did.
In an interview with The Gleaner yesterday, jerk chicken vendor Laxley Lewis, who operates along Red Hills Road, condemned Wugh’s actions.
“She shouldn’t even get back a spot (at Crab Circle) as much as some a di people on social media a vouch for her. She shouldn’t get back a spot. How you fi do that? Is that right? No, man! She should never go back there or anywhere else,” he said, adding that he believed that she should be arrested for her conduct, which he said could have endangered the health of her customers.
With many Jamaicans expressing scepticism on social media about whether they would continue to purchase street food, Lewis said such sentiments could be damaging to some businesses in the industry.
He was confident, however, that he and the other jerk vendors in the vicinity would not face any fallout as their consumers trust them to follow proper sanitary practices, including safe meal preparation, cleaning of utensils and other kitchen equipment, and the general disinfection of the space.
“We all right, we set. Our ting different than them. We haffi maintain our status ... we have water fi wash our hand and the customer dem hand, we have soap, we have scotch-brite ... we have people from overseas a eat from we. We cyah lower our standards,” he said.
“We nuh ramp out here,” he added, noting that just as he has sanitisation products available, even though he operates on the sidewalk, he believes all street vendors should do the same. He said it was unhygienic to relieve oneself at the same location or near the area where food is being prepared.
He pointed out that it was possible that some vendors did not maintain good hygiene at home, which is why they felt it was alright to engage in certain practices while at their food stalls.
SALES AFFECTED DOWNTOWN
But while Lewis is not overly concerned about the impact on his business at Red Hills Road, the view was not the same closer to Crab Circle.
Asking not to be identified, a vendor at Big Tree in South Parade, downtown Kingston, said he believed that he was already feeling the effects of the Crab Circle incident on the sector.
The seller’s location was kept clutter-free and arranged neatly with a wide variety of pots and pans on coal stoves that were packed with breakfast foods for sale.
On Sunday, he showed The Gleaner a sufficient supply of water for sanitisation and further indicated that a large pot he said held 25 pounds of cooked rice had gone untouched.
At 11:50 a.m., he admitted to The Gleaner that he had not sold a single breakfast box.
He expressed reservations about travelling to the nearby meat shop to purchase chicken parts as he reasoned that if breakfast failed to bring in any money, it was possible that no one would show up to purchase lunch either.
“Nothing nuh deh ‘bout because since morning me shoulda sell off me breakfast, but me nuh see nothing a gwaan,” he bemoaned.
The male vendor stated that he had been selling at that same spot for more than 10 years and would only come out on Sundays and public holidays.
He offers a wide range of Jamaican breakfast and lunch specialties, including ackee and saltfish, salt mackerel rundown (rundung), stewed chicken and turkey neck, chicken and fish meals paired with boiled ground provisions. He also caters to rice lovers.
Commenting on the incident at Crab Circle, he acknowledged that “the good just haffi suffer for the bad”.
Lewis is pleading with the Government to consider assisting street food vendors in getting portable restrooms that they could pay to have cleaned frequently. He said that by doing this, it would prevent similar incidents in the future and would also be beneficial as they would provide a place where customers could also relieve themselves.