City pavement vendors agree to environmental tax

–‘assault on garbage’ planned for tomorrow

Pavement vendors on Water and Regent streets yesterday agreed to pay the city a weekly environmental tax of $1,000, which will go towards keeping the areas in which they operate clean.

However, they were warned by Town Clerk Royston King that they will still be obliged to keep their surroundings tidy. “Not that you not going to clean, but we are going to do extra cleaning,” he told the approximately 400 vendors gathered at the City Hall parking lot. He noted that the vendors have an environmental footprint when plying their trade and the fee will contribute to hiring extra persons to clean.

 City vendors in attendance during the Town Clerk’s presentation
City vendors in attendance during the Town Clerk’s presentation

The council’s current database, which accounts for Regent and Water streets, has 324 vendors registered and the environmental fee stands to be a major contributing revenue earner for the Mayor and City Council (M&CC).

It was stated that this database has contact numbers and locations of all vendors and would be used to track down persons who are non-compliant. The tax would be effective from October 1st.

The council also encouraged the vendors to sign on to the Georgetown Green Volunteer Corps (GGVC) to keep the city clean.

Meanwhile, King announced that “an assault on garbage” will take place tomorrow at Water Street between the hours of 7 am and 2 pm.

All vendors are required to be present and would be banned from selling for a week if they do not comply, he said.

This prompted cheers from the crowd of enthused vendors that encouraged the speaker. “Nuff of them nasty and nah like clean. Dem should pay a fee if dem ain’t clean,” one vendor announced.

 

Still not legit

King stressed several times during the engagement that the environmental fee will not make the pavement vendors’ businesses legitimate. He reiterated that it was still illegal, according to the law, to sell on the pavements.

The temporary solution of the vendors occupying the pavement was in consideration of their socio-economic situation and King stated that the intent is to eventually relocate them to places where they can ply their trade profitably.

During the interactive meeting, a vendor said it is “the junkies and homeless” who throw the garbage on the streets and she asked that the council look into the matter.

King appealed to everyone, especially charitable organisations, not to feed homeless persons on the streets. This, he noted, encourages persons to continue living on the streets. He implored the families of vagrants to go after them and give the support to get them off the streets.

King announced that he will be monitoring the city for persons, particularly store owners, who use the pavement to display their merchandise.

This practice must be discontinued, he said,while noting that if the vendors take piece of the pavement and the store owners take a piece then there will be no place to walk. This will be piloted on Regent Street.

The vendors highlighted several other major issues, such as sharing of the blame for the garbage problem, grease waste from restaurants that block drains, public urination, lack of bins, and they offered solutions, including the need for a recycling plant and an effect collection garbage collection system.