Delroy Williams
August 23, 2023
Full time for order in the city, Mr Mayor
News that the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) is mulling a two-week ‘break’ from raids targeting street vendors in the capital city begs a conversation on a longer-term solution to an age-old problem.
Illegal street vending has plagued city Kingston for far too long. From the days of “Metro [police] a come!” to now plain, old “Run, run, run”, vendors have chorused their battle cry from as long as living memory will allow.
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This despite several half-baked attempts to essentially corral those who eke out a living from trade on the sidewalks intended for pedestrian traffic – not to mention those who block the thoroughfare with carts, trolleys, or retrofitted contraptions to make their emporiums mobile.
The nuisance has been to both the foot traffic through the city as well as the established businesses, who must cede the entrance to their entities to their unruly and informal competitors.
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All told, though we shine a light on downtown Kingston today, this is the scene in most if not all our town centres. So, to say it is pervasive is still an understatement.
What we have in front of us now is yet another jejune attempt at dealing with the issue.
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The problem is that our local government managers seem more interested in placating the vendors with short-term treats of a ‘break’, rather than developing and implementing a workable solution.
Undeniably, however, one step has been made in the effort, as Senior Observer Writer Balford Henry tells us in an article in our Monday, August 21, 2023 edition, that Mayor of Kingston Senator Delroy Williams has met with the vendors to hear from them. Indeed, they must be part of the solution.
We have seen that excluding them has not worked. Too many structure have been built with taxpayers’ money that remain empty or occupied by animals and vermin.
Still, the councillors of the KSAMC must utilise the information garnered to organise a solution that may be replicable in other parts of the country.
Seasonable reprieve, at Christmastime or “back-to-school”, cannot be seen as treating the problem in any substantial way.
The mayor has made comments that signal he has an understanding of the need for a more comprehensive solution, but what has not been seen is the makings of a proposal that will take us closer to public order.
Because that is the root of the situation before us. An appreciation that enforcement is only one-half of the problem must be put in the midst of the conversation going forward. Disorder feeds this nuisance.
Said Mayor Williams, in admission: “You are not co-operating and you want to continue in the same way, people want to sell the same way. They want to stand up on the roadside and throw the cabbage skin on the street, and when they are gone home other people supposed to come and take them up. If you don’t take them up they block the road, and they say that the Government is not doing anything.”
So, His Worship, we know you understand that which plagues us. On now with a real solution!
What is certain is that even if the sought break is granted it cannot be a free-for-all. The attainment of public order has to be successful in the capital city as well as in the many town centres suffering this same affliction. It is full time an end is put to public disorder, because even though dollars are traded, no one can truly benefit from disorder.
