Old Shoe Market vendors get extension
WESTERN BUREAU — The St James Parish Council has given the more than 80 vendors at the Old Shoe Market in Montego Bay an extended lifeline to remain at the facility.
Chairman of the council’s commercial services committee, Leroy Williams, told a meeting of the committee earlier this week that the vendors will remain at the facility until a suitable place is found to accommodate them.
Since February, the local authority which at that time was controlled by the ruling People’s National Party (PNP), has been trying to have the vendors removed to the nearby People’s Arcade in the city.
The Montego Bay City Council, a committee of the St James Parish Council, in February served notices on the vendors for them to remove, but they have defied the orders and vowed not to operate from the proposed location.
But at Wednesday’s meeting, Williams, who is a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillor for the Glendevon division, said a number of alternative locations were being looked at to house the vendors.
He indicated that the proposed site at the nearby People’s Arcade was not suitable to accommodate the vendors.
Williams was responding to questions raised by Councillor Michael Troupe (PNP, Granville division).
Councillor Troupe wanted to know why it was taking the council so long to have the vendors relocated.
St James Parish Council’s former deputy mayor, the PNP’s Gerard Mitchell, has long argued that vending at the Old Shoe Market is not consistent with the council’s plan for the area.
He has consistently called for the vendors to be relocated to the People’s Arcade.
But the vendors said that the People’s Arcade is not economically viable and have pointed to a lack of proper security and sanitary conveniences and over-crowding at the facility.
One week before Christmas last December, the vendors were allowed to occupy the Old Shoe Market by the former PNP administration, as part of the council’s initiative to rid Montego Bay’s streets of illegal vending.
They were initially given until January 31 to vacate the temporary site, then the deadline was extended to February 25, as repairs were made to the People’s Arcade.
