Two newspaper vendors are expected to appear in court today charged with pedestrian obstruction of traffic; they were removed from two city bridges, where they sold newspapers, by traffic officers.
Vendor Matthew James, who has been selling newspapers on the ‘Shopping Plaza’ Bridge since 2003, and another man who was selling on the Tucville Bridge, were removed by traffic officers yesterday morning and taken to the East La Penitence Police Station where they were placed on $10,000 bail each and told to attend court today.
According to James, he was selling his newspapers when two police officers pulled up in a vehicle and told him he was blocking the traffic and instructed him to enter the vehicle. The other vendor was already in the vehicle.
Chris Duggon, a vendor, said he has been selling on the Tucville Bridge for the past year and yesterday he had bought copies of this newspaper. He said because the Kaieteur News was late in printing, he decided to wait for it and sent a friend of his with the Stabroek News to his spot to start selling. It was his friend who was picked up by the officers and placed on station bail.
James lamented that he has been selling at the ‘Plaza’ Bridge location for a number of years and the sale of newspapers contributes significantly to his livelihood. He said he has never been warned by the police and most of the monies he would have made from sales yesterday had to be used to pay his bail and then he wasted almost an entire day at the station. The man admitted that sometimes persons ask him to take the newspaper out to their vehicles while they are still in traffic instead of parking and waiting to be sold. Usually, he said, he was in the corner on the parapet with his newspapers.
When the men were picked up yesterday, they both only had copies of the Stabroek News in their possession.
