Sascha Wil­son

Street ven­dors and of­fi­cers from the City Po­lice squared off yes­ter­day as the law­men tried to pre­vent them from sell­ing along High Street, San Fer­nan­do. Shop­pers, busy look­ing for Christ­mas bar­gains, looked on as the ven­dors be­rat­ed the po­lice of­fi­cers who came in two vans. Dur­ing the melee, a few ven­dors were ar­rest­ed and a quan­ti­ty of goods seized. The ex­er­cise be­gan on Low­er High Street, but when the of­fi­cers got to Carl­ton Cen­tre the ven­dors re­tal­i­at­ed. They ac­cost­ed the po­lice­men and a war of words broke out. The po­lice­men got back in­to their vans but the ven­dors con­verged on one of the vans and be­gan pound­ing on it. The cops again emerged from their van, but quick­ly re­turned to it and sped off. "Have a heart. Oh Gosh! Christ­mas is Fri­day," begged ven­dor Glo­ria Turn­er who showed off her per­mit to sell on High Street.

She said they paid to vend on High Street from De­cem­ber 1 to 31st, which was re­flect­ed on a re­ceipt she was hold­ing. At the cor­po­ra­tion's statu­to­ry meet­ing last week, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ken­neth Fer­gu­son said the ven­dors were on­ly al­lowed to sell on Sat­ur­days and Sun­days on High Street. Fol­low­ing the fra­cas, some of the ven­dors as­sem­bled in front of City Hall to protest. Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Street Ven­dors As­so­ci­a­tion, Roger Jack, said they paid $475-plus to sell on High Street. Ad­mit­ting the agree­ment was that they sell on­ly on week­ends, he said: "It rained on Sun­day and this Sat­ur­day we will not be able to sell be­cause Christ­mas is Fri­day."

"We spoke to them and they said they will try to put things in ef­fect. When we came out to sell to­day (yes­ter­day) the of­fi­cers came with their sirens blar­ing and telling every­one to move off the streets and we can­not sell oth­er­wise they will lock us up. Every­body de­cide they not tak­ing that and start to talk up." He said no one from the cor­po­ra­tion was avail­able for them to speak with. Un­fazed by the in­ci­dent, how­ev­er, the ven­dors con­tin­ued to sell their goods, but hid when they saw po­lice of­fi­cers. At­tempts to reach Fer­gu­son on his cell­phone were un­suc­cess­ful.