WHO OWNS THE OLD ROYAL CASTLE PROPERTY?
I have not gone to the Stabroek Market area for over ten years. I have no intention of ever going there.
Unless it is totally unavoidable, I am not going to be found driving or even walking in that area. It is the most confusing and crowded area in the whole country.
It is dirty, disorganized and dangerous. The drains are filled with muck. People, buses and hire cars are battling for territory. Pickpockets are all around and makeshift barbers are using the pavement as salons.
The traffic cops really have a difficult time controlling the movement of vehicles in that area, parking is non- existent and a great many chains have been snatched in that area.
It is not a place to be in unless you have to travel. The Stabroek area is the transit station of public transportation and this is why it is frequented every day by persons who have no choice.
The situation becomes more chaotic because of the large number of vendors who ply their trade there. The market itself loses business because whatever you want you can obtain from a vendor. This makes a mockery of people having to pay rental to the City Council when unfair competition is happening right outside the market.
The City Council is cleaning the area for Guyana Independence anniversary and is asking the vendors to move. But instead of simply telling them to leave, they are actually going to the trouble of relocating the vendors.
The intention may be good but illegal vending should never be encouraged because in so doing it can be construed as according legal sanction to this activity.
The vendors at Stabroek Market are being temporarily removed to a location which I always presumed was private property. If it is private property then what right do vendors have to be there in the first place?
For vendors to be relocated to private property would constitute trespass. As such, they would be liable to ejected from that location should the owner or owners obtain a court order.
If the spot to which they are being relocated is private property then the City Council should explain the legal basis on which they are relocating vendors to that location. Do they have the permission of the owner or owners to do so?
If such permission has been granted then the public needs to be told whether there are any conditions for allowing the vendors on private property.
If, however, the land is public property then it needs to be asked whether the best use is being put to that land. If the spot at which the vendors are being relocated is public property then why is it not being used as a parking lot to help ease the congestion in the Stabroek Market area?
The City Council is digging a hole to fill a hole. They will end up creating a new vending spot. The old Toolsie Persaud property was supposed to be for pavement vendors. But the creation of a vendors’ arcade at that location did not reduce the number of persons vending on the pavements.
It simply created more vending in the city.
The same is going to happen with the old Royal Castle site. When it is time for the vendors to return to their old spots that site is going to become an additional arcade and the vending situation will get worse.
The solution is simple. All vendors have to be removed once their activities are illegal and against the council’s by laws. There is no reason to find any temporary spot for vendors. Once they are not legal, they should be removed, once and for all.
Order must be restored to Georgetown. Unless vending and squatting are outlawed, then there will only be continued disorder.