On the face of it, the de­ci­sion by Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing to im­pose a $700 a month li­cence fee on co­conut ven­dors op­er­at­ing around the Sa­van­nah is well-in­ten­tioned, yet ex­treme­ly ar­bi­trary and un­fair. The may­or's de­ci­sion is well in­ten­tioned be­cause it is ob­vi­ous­ly a fur­ther at­tempt to bring some or­der to the vend­ing sit­u­a­tion in the cap­i­tal city.

Con­cern about the hy­giene in the city and defin­ing the num­ber of ven­dors who can oc­cu­py a spec­i­fied area in the city are both with­in the re­mit of a may­or, once such con­cern and de­f­i­n­i­tion are not whim­si­cal. The fact that the may­or seeks to im­pose a li­cens­ing fee on the Sa­van­nah co­conut ven­dors alone, and not any of the oth­er co­conut ven­dors in Port-of-Spain, or any oth­er of the city's ven­dors, would sug­gest that oth­er is­sues are para­mount.

There should be rules for ven­dors in the coun­try's cap­i­tal, in the same way that there should be rules for dri­vers wish­ing to park their cars on the streets of the city and peo­ple wish­ing to re­lieve them­selves-two of the may­or's oth­er peeves. But the rules for ven­dors must be fair­ly and con­sis­tent­ly ap­plied.

If co­conut ven­dors have to pay to oc­cu­py pub­lic space, then all of the oth­er ven­dors who re­main with­in the precincts of the city should be made to pay as well. There can't be one rule for Bab­wah and an­oth­er rule for Bil­ly. If co­conut ven­dors around the Sa­van­nah have to pay for the priv­i­lege of sell­ing there, then sure­ly the dou­bles ven­dors, those sell­ing il­le­gal­ly pi­rat­ed DVDs and the food ven­dors in the paved sec­tion and oth­er ven­dors should be made to pay as well.

For the may­or to do oth­er­wise is to in­vite law­suits claim­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion and un­equal treat­ment which, giv­en re­cent Privy Coun­cil judg­ments in this area of the law, he is al­most guar­an­teed to lose. An­oth­er irk­some con­sid­er­a­tion in the may­or's at­tempt to im­pose this fee is that it is gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed that the im­po­si­tion of a fee on ven­dors is ac­com­pa­nied by some up­grade in the fa­cil­i­ties that they are af­ford­ed, if any.

In the case of the city's ven­dors of food prod­ucts, this sure­ly should in­clude run­ning wa­ter, toi­lets, a clean­ing ser­vice and se­cu­ri­ty-paid for and main­tained by the au­thor­i­ty im­pos­ing the fee. In the ab­sence of the up­grad­ed fa­cil­i­ties, those ven­dors af­fect­ed might well ques­tion why they are be­ing re­quired to pay for a li­cence.

In gen­er­al terms, the re­quire­ment that ven­dors be made to pay a li­cence fee is a good idea as it would bring thou­sands of peo­ple who now gen­er­ate un­de­clared, tax-free in­come un­der the am­bit of the na­tion's rev­enue au­thor­i­ties.

In this re­gard, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance should give se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion in the 2013 bud­get to the im­po­si­tion of a na­tion­al ven­dors' li­cence fee as a means of rais­ing rev­enue and reg­u­lat­ing this ac­tiv­i­ty. It would be use­ful, too, for the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to con­sid­er com­put­er­is­ing this na­tion­al ven­dors' li­cence and en­sur­ing that the list is net­worked with the po­lice and with the tax au­thor­i­ties. This would en­sure that peo­ple with po­lice records are not grant­ed li­cences and that peo­ple who wish to re­ceive vend­ing li­cences are re­quired to ful­fil their tax oblig­a­tions.

But such a fee im­po­si­tion must not be puni­tive. It must be com­men­su­rate with the in­come-gen­er­at­ing abil­i­ty of the ven­dors.