Char­lotte Street ven­dors will be al­lowed to sell next Tues­day to Wednes­day and on Christ­mas and Box­ing Day. The de­ci­sion was made yes­ter­day dur­ing a meet­ing be­tween Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald. A me­dia re­lease from the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion said Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­e­ly and Mc­Don­ald met with the Char­lotte Street Ven­dors As­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day to dis­cuss the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion's de­ci­sion to on­ly al­low vend­ing from Thurs­day to Sun­day.

The re­lease said ven­dors con­tend­ed that for the last three years, they had been al­lowed to sell be­tween Mon­day and Wednes­day ad­di­tion­al­ly, two weeks be­fore Christ­mas. The re­lease said af­ter lis­ten­ing to the ven­dors' con­cerns, Row­ley then man­dat­ed Mc­Don­ald to meet with Lee Sing to ask the coun­cil to re­con­sid­er its de­ci­sion to ban vend­ing from Mon­day to Wednes­day along Char­lotte Street, dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son.

The re­lease said: "Af­ter meet­ing with Ms Mc­Don­ald and sub­se­quent­ly the coun­cil, His Wor­ship (Lee Sing) in­di­cat­ed that in ad­di­tion to the reg­u­lar days of Thurs­days to Sun­day, ven­dors will be al­lowed to sell next Tues­day and Wednes­day, as well as Christ­mas Day and Box­ing Day." The re­lease said the ven­dors agreed to op­er­ate with­in the law and the as­so­ci­a­tion pub­licly dis­as­so­ci­at­ed it­self from the con­fronta­tion with po­lice of­fi­cers on Mon­day.