Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A small busi­ness own­er in Care­nage has ob­tained an in­junc­tion pre­vent­ing the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion from de­mol­ish­ing his mi­ni mart, which the cor­po­ra­tion claims was con­struct­ed with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion.

Last week, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran grant­ed the in­junc­tion sought by Kelvin Pope, who op­er­ates Lal­be­har­ry’s Meat, Veg­gie, and Mi­ni Mart along the West­ern Main Road near the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion.

The in­junc­tion was ex­tend­ed when Pope’s case was called for hear­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia show that Pope pur­chased the build­ing from Yas­min Muh­tasham in De­cem­ber 2020. Muh­tasham had pre­vi­ous­ly ac­quired the prop­er­ty from the late Steve Mar­tin in 2008.

Pope claimed that Mar­tin be­gan squat­ting on the land in 1957 and con­struct­ed the build­ing in 1986. He added that Mar­tin was grant­ed a liquor li­cence by the Liquor Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee for St George West be­fore sell­ing the build­ing and busi­ness.

Pope ad­mit­ted that in May 2023, he re­ceived cor­re­spon­dence from the cor­po­ra­tion’s en­gi­neer­ing de­part­ment al­leg­ing that the struc­ture was built with­out ap­proval. The cor­po­ra­tion al­so claimed that the build­ing was ob­struct­ing staff ac­cess to clean pub­lic drains in the area.

He said he re­ceived ad­di­tion­al no­tices and a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter from the cor­po­ra­tion, in­clud­ing a Feb­ru­ary no­tice or­der­ing him to cease op­er­a­tions and a sub­se­quent let­ter threat­en­ing de­mo­li­tion.

Through his lawyers, Orin Kerr and Hen­ry Chase, Pope filed for the in­junc­tion af­ter the cor­po­ra­tion in­di­cat­ed it would be­gin de­mo­li­tion last Fri­day.

Pope de­nied per­form­ing the con­struc­tion him­self and not­ed that the cor­po­ra­tion’s no­tices did not spec­i­fy the dates it claimed the build­ing was con­struct­ed or com­plet­ed. He al­so chal­lenged its claims re­gard­ing de­nied ac­cess to clean the drains.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran gave di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of ev­i­dence in the case and ad­journed the mat­ter to April 23.