Resh­ma Ra­goonath

San Fer­nan­do may­or Mar­lene Coudray says the cor­po­ra­tion is con­tin­u­ing to lob­by Gov­ern­ment for space at the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Chancery Lane com­plex to house street ven­dors. She made the com­ment as San Fer­nan­do mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar called on the may­or and the city po­lice to ex­er­cise "tough love" if they want­ed the chron­ic prob­lem of street vend­ing to end. The may­or and San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion ex­ec­u­tives, in­clud­ing CEO De­o­dath Ra­goo­bar, ap­peared be­fore Chanker who last week is­sued a sum­mons to Coudray to shed light on the vend­ing is­sue. Coudray, speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the court mat­ter, agreed that space was des­ig­nat­ed for ven­dors at the com­plex.

How­ev­er, last month Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the com­plex would be con­vert­ed in­to an ex­ten­sion of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. She ad­mit­ted that the cor­po­ra­tion was un­cer­tain if the space would be al­lot­ted for use by the ven­dors. Coudray added: "The cor­po­ra­tion has nev­er stopped try­ing to find a suit­able place for vend­ing. The ses­sions are con­tin­u­ing. We can­not at this time say what they are but we are near­ing a so­lu­tion to that." Chankar, ad­dress­ing the may­or and the cor­po­ra­tion ex­ec­u­tives, said ven­dors came be­fore the court, pay their fines or are rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged and then they re­turn to the streets to sell again. Af­ter some­time, she said, they re­turn to the court charged with il­le­gal vend­ing. She added: "It is time for the city po­lice to be more strin­gent and not give them (ven­dors) the chance to pack up. "When the items come be­fore the court we have to take it away. We are sor­ry to be tak­ing away the peo­ple's stuff but we have to do it. We have to get tough."

Ra­goo­bar said a mass pub­lic aware­ness cam­paign on vend­ing was set to be­gin soon. The mag­is­trate had sum­moned the may­or pri­or to sen­tenc­ing DVD ven­dor An­tho­ny Williams, of Di­a­mond Vil­lage, St Croix, who plead­ed guilty to pitch­ing a stall, ob­struc­tion and of­fer­ing mar­ketable goods for sale with­out a li­cence from the SFCC. Williams claimed he was turned away when he tried to ap­ply for a li­cence to legal­ly sell goods.

He said no such li­cence ex­ist­ed. Chankar rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged Williams as she warned him not to re­peat the of­fences. The may­or, who ap­peared with at­tor­neys Vish Ram­ber­ran and Ramesh Deena, re­fut­ed that. She said ven­dors could ap­ply to the coun­cil in writ­ing for a li­cence to sell. Coudray said ven­dors who want­ed a li­cence could ap­ply to the cor­po­ra­tion in writ­ing af­ter which it would de­lib­er­ate on the ap­pli­ca­tion. The mag­is­trate said cit­i­zens al­so were adding to the prob­lem when they bought from street ven­dors. "It re­al­ly lends it­self to break­ing the law. It has a re­ac­tion, it is a chain­link. If we all do the right thing then we won't have this sit­u­a­tion aris­ing. I am not say­ing it is go­ing to be erased overnight," Chankar added.