Just one San Fer­nan­do ven­dor is oc­cu­py­ing the new booths on Mu­cu­rapo Street, af­ter be­ing re­lo­cat­ed from the crowd­ed High Street.

Oth­er ven­dors are said to be sign­ing their le­gal agree­ments with the City Cor­po­ra­tion, as San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris an­nounced his plans for a sec­ond des­ig­nat­ed vend­ing zone on Har­ris Prom­e­nade as part of the city’s ef­forts to re­ju­ve­nate the busi­ness dis­trict.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia this week, May­or Par­ris em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of le­gal agree­ments and reg­is­tra­tion say­ing it’s the first time peo­ple got their own le­gal con­tracts.

“Peo­ple are very ex­cit­ed to be reg­is­tered ven­dors. This le­git­imis­es vend­ing in San Fer­nan­do,” Par­ris said. He ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the progress, not­ing that one ven­dor, Jer­ry Hur­dle, had al­ready signed the le­gal agree­ment and had be­gun op­er­at­ing, with oth­ers in the process of ob­tain­ing their doc­u­ments.

Re­gard­ing the op­po­si­tion from some ven­dors, which led to sev­er­al days of protests in Jan­u­ary, May­or Par­ris de­clined to com­ment fo­cus­ing in­stead on those will­ing to work with the city.

“I have no com­ment on them but the ones who are ready and will­ing to work with us, we will make every op­por­tu­ni­ty avail­able for them. There are al­so op­por­tu­ni­ties for new ven­dors. This is a process for us to reg­is­ter them, find out who is from the City and give them pref­er­ence in terms of law and or­der,” he said.

He thanked the sup­port­ive ven­dors and high­light­ed the pos­i­tive feed­back from the pub­lic and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing the im­proved traf­fic flow.

The may­or al­so re­vealed his plans to re­lo­cate ven­dors from Li­brary Cor­ner to Har­ris Prom­e­nade in the com­ing weeks.

Mean­while, Hur­dle, the lone ven­dor at the des­ig­nat­ed zone, ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with his first day of sales on Mu­cu­rapo Street.

“To­day was the first day and it wasn’t bad. I met some of my old cus­tomers and we even got some new cus­tomers to­day. That is a good start. I thank God for this good start. I in­tend to build up a good clien­tele. In time, peo­ple will leave To­co and come to look for me here,” he vowed.

Hur­dle ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the spot, em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of per­se­ver­ance and adapt­ing to the new lo­ca­tion. 

Al­though he ac­knowl­edged the dif­fer­ences in foot traf­fic com­pared to High Street, Hur­dle praised the im­proved fa­cil­i­ties on Mu­cu­rapo Street.

He echoed May­or Par­ris’s sen­ti­ments and em­pha­sised the sig­nif­i­cance of hav­ing vend­ing se­cu­ri­ty. 

“This is our bread and but­ter, and with God’s help, we will make it,” he said.

High Street ven­dors were re­moved ear­li­er this year fol­low­ing nu­mer­ous com­plaints about blocked pave­ments, traf­fic and lit­ter­ing. The move was met with strong re­sis­tance from some ven­dors who ac­cused the May­or of be­ing cal­lous. 

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh lat­er urged ven­dors to give Mu­cu­rapo Street a try be­fore com­plain­ing and crit­i­cis­ing. He said for years busi­ness own­ers have been op­er­at­ing suc­cess­ful­ly from this venue not­ing that the new vend­ing zones present an op­por­tu­ni­ty to spread com­merce in San Fer­nan­do.