Salvatori vendors removed; POS mayor cannot afford to subsidize them

The Port of Spain City Council has removed seasonal vendors from their temporary location on the site of the old Salvatori Building in Port of Spain.

Port of Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing and Minister of Works and Transport Jack Warner had an agreement for the vendors to use the site for the Christmas season but there was a clear understanding that it would be a temporary arrangement.

Still vendors were not pleased when employees from the Port of Spain City Corporation dismantled the booths and vendors were forced out over the weekend.

Lee Sing told the Trinidad Express he could not give the vendors an extension, saying he has advised Warner that the city has "no more money to subsidise this project."

Lee Sing added, "We were running a seasonal vending campaign based on an arrangement with the Ministry of Works that was for Christmas. Christmas ended and we gave an extension for Carnival. That season has ended. This is seasonal vending, which is to say Christmas now you gone into Carnival ... where you want me to go next Easter?"

The Mayor said the city reduced the rent twice during the three-month period that the vendors were occupying the space.

"Some of them have not paid the rent, but more than that, the rent has been subsidised so that they can do their trade, but the time has come where we can subsidise no more," he said.

"I am putting in place something else which I propose to take to Council this week by Friday, and then I should have an answer to the challenges that confront all of us. 

"The plan is that we are going to be putting down stores in lower Charlotte and Henry Streets. Once that has been done they will all be given an opportunity to be considered," Lee Sing told the paper.

The vendors are hoping that Warner would intervene on their behalf. "Listen, we got a raw deal here from the start because some of us spent up to $8000 building our stalls and we have not made back that money yet," one vendor told reporters.

"We pleading with Jack Warner and asking him if he could get us some time until the mayor's project is complete," another vendor told the media.

Another added, "I done pay for my booth for this week already ... I find it unfair. Where we would go? Not back on the streets? Then they would send the police to hold you and take your things and have you running."