Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Ven­dors at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah are large­ly un­con­cerned about the re­lo­ca­tion of this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade, say­ing they do not typ­i­cal­ly ben­e­fit from the crowds at­tend­ing the an­nu­al mil­i­tary dis­play.

The pa­rade, usu­al­ly held on a paved area near the Sa­van­nah’s Grand Stand, has been moved sev­er­al kilo­me­tres away to a grassy ex­panse near the Pres­i­dent’s House in Queen’s Park East.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Sa­van­nah’s food strip yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Ali­cia Kesh­wah, pro­pri­etor of the D Orig­i­nal Grill Boys food trail­er near the Grand Stand en­trance, said the change may have ac­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit­ed ven­dors.

Kesh­wah, who has been op­er­at­ing at the lo­ca­tion for more than a decade, ex­plained that ven­dors are nor­mal­ly re­quired to va­cate their vend­ing spots tem­porar­i­ly to ac­com­mo­date pa­rade prepa­ra­tions, clean-up ex­er­cis­es, dress re­hearsals and ve­hi­cle move­ments.

“This year we didn’t have to move, so we can stay and sell,” she said.

“Nor­mal­ly, we have to move for a whole week while they pre­pare, clean up and car­ry out dress re­hearsals. This year, we didn’t have to move, so we can con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing.”

How­ev­er, she ad­mit­ted there is some un­cer­tain­ty about whether In­de­pen­dence night sales will match pre­vi­ous years, not­ing that many peo­ple who vis­it the Sa­van­nah to watch the fire­works al­so pa­tro­n­ise ven­dors.

Kesh­wah said In­de­pen­dence night is one of the most lu­cra­tive pe­ri­ods for ven­dors, in­clud­ing her son, who op­er­ates a snow cone cart. She added that many re­ly on the earn­ings gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions to sup­port their fam­i­lies and pre­pare their chil­dren for the start of the new school term.

“I don’t know how that will turn out be­cause they are say­ing the fire­works will be vis­i­ble from the east­ern side of the Sa­van­nah. We’re hop­ing for the best,” she said.

“That morn­ing rush for snow cones is al­ways sig­nif­i­cant, and in the evening we get a lot of pa­trons com­ing for the fire­works. Again, I’m not sure how that will be af­fect­ed.”

Kesh­wah said this year’s turnout and sales fig­ures would ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mine whether ven­dors sup­port the re­lo­ca­tion or pre­fer the pa­rade to re­turn to the Grand Stand.

An­oth­er ven­dor, Mar­lon Leslie, own­er and op­er­a­tor of Lev­el Con­coc­tion Mock­tail Bar, said he does not ex­pect the re­lo­ca­tion to neg­a­tive­ly af­fect his busi­ness.

Al­though this will be his first year ex­pe­ri­enc­ing In­de­pen­dence Day fes­tiv­i­ties as a ven­dor at the Sa­van­nah, Leslie said there is noth­ing to sug­gest at­ten­dance will be low­er than in pre­vi­ous years.

“I don’t see any in­ter­rup­tion in sales at all,” he said. “I ex­pect the gen­er­al pub­lic to come out that night and for us to have a good evening of sales.

“I’m not con­cerned at all.”

While ex­press­ing con­fi­dence about busi­ness prospects, Leslie said there should have been greater con­sul­ta­tion be­fore the de­ci­sion was made to re­lo­cate the pa­rade.

“They could have done more con­sul­ta­tion to make it work with the Grand Stand, per­haps by util­is­ing both the Grand Stand and the North Stand in­stead of re­lo­cat­ing it al­to­geth­er to an­oth­er sec­tion of the Sa­van­nah,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia al­so vis­it­ed the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo to de­ter­mine whether of­fi­cials had any con­cerns about stag­ing the pa­rade clos­er to the fa­cil­i­ty and any po­ten­tial im­pact on an­i­mal wel­fare.

How­ev­er, a re­porter was in­formed that two of­fi­cials had al­ready left the premis­es.

Ques­tions were sent to the zoo’s man­age­ment on Mon­day seek­ing com­ment, but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to press time yes­ter­day.