A large-scale confrontation between police and vendors on the island of St. Vincent could be in the making.
The islands’ police, Kingstown Town Board officials, and vendors faced off on Friday morning for the second time in two months.
Kenville Horne, reporting for Boom FM radio, stated that vendors’ trollies and other items were being sold on the street from the back of a truck.
Police were keeping an eye on the truck while they seized other items.
As the government works to clear the capital’s clogged streets, vendors have been complaining that they are making no money in the market where the town board has placed them.
On February 4, vendors on Kingstown streets were chased back into the new vegetable markets in St. Vincent by police and private security guards.
On February 4, angry vendors argued that they were not making enough money at the markets, so they returned to the streets and expressed their dissatisfaction with the market situation, threatening to withhold fees and staging a protest.
One vendor on Friday shouted to a group of police present: “It’s only a matter of time before people take to the streets in large numbers; you guys have become servants of politicians and not of the people.”
“They take our produce; we don’t get it back; it’s unfair; we paid for those, and they confiscate them and then take them to their homes,” another vendor shouted.
“We have to get rid of this government; we cannot make a dollar out here; they are wicked; they must be removed from office,” an irate vendor opined.
As part of the “Vendors Relocation Project,” the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is relocating over 380 vendors from the capital’s streets.
Clayton Burgin told the St. Vincent Times in December 2022 that the major purpose of the cleanup effort is to ensure that people can walk through the streets and that businesses may have a free flow of traffic in and out of their enterprises.
Some vendors selling newspapers, phone cards, coconut water, snacks, fruits, and other things will continue to operate on sidewalks at selected locations. The existing clothing stores on Middle Street will continue to operate until better alternatives are found.
According to the authorities, there are around 1300 vendors on the island. St Vincent police receive military training in dealing with civil disturbances.
