Tempers flared this morning on West Collet Canal Street as vendors clashed with the City Council. The City Council says residents in the area have been complaining about the vendors and so this morning – personnel from the City Council’s Traffic Department attempted to dismantle their tents. But the vendors resisted. When we arrived, the City Council had left but tensions were still boiling.
Keith Swift Reporting,
We found vendors on West Collet Canal Street up in arms and angry over the city council’s attempt to remove them.
Verhemia Palma, Streetside Vendor
“That isn’t right for them to move us. This is our daily bread. I am a single parent, I got two kids at school. If I don’t sell, how will I send my kids to school? That is why I am out here. If they are willing to give me a job I wouldn’t be out here but I went to them several times for jobs and I didn’t give me. So I come out here to make a daily bread and they want to stop it.”
Lloyd McKesey, Streetside Vendor
“We have to eat and we don’t want to go and beg a politician or nobody for a job. We are independent people out here and we are hardworking
people because we are here from 4 until 7. If you check that out, that is roughly like fourteen hours we the work.”
But the City Council says the vendors have become a nuisance to residents in the area. The vendors disagree.
Lloyd McKesey,
“One man against ten persons? If all the neighbours were complaining but we got 1, 2, 5, 7 house and one out of seven is complaining. From school days you know that out of seven is failure.”
Keith Swift,
“Do you think that you guys being out here is affecting traffic or residents?”
Lloyd McKesey,
“We are not affecting nobody. See they gave us this white line and all of us stay behind the white line. We are not disturbing nobody. It is one man making complaints to the people.”
Verhemia Palma,
“I am not moving, this is our bread. I will not move. We are not stealing, we are not killing, this is an honest thing so I don’t know why they want to stop us from selling out here. We are not interfere with nobody. Just because of one man? One man can move all of us from here.”
Lloyd McKesey,
“Watch how many people out here feeding their family. About ten or fifteen people out here so this is a daily living for us. We are out here from 4 o’clock in the morning and until 7 at night. We are trying to make a little bread. The man who is trying to stop us from being out here, he is on pension. He got his pension money coming from America. We don’t live on pension. We don’t want to be out here thiefing and robbing nobody and that is why we are out here to make our daily living. They are trying to play with our daily living.”
The question tonight is what cost will these vendors be allowed to make that living.
The neighbour who the vendors referred to told us that his only problem is with the dirt. The City Councillor in charge of Traffic Wayne Usher says the vendors have been warned and that the city council tried to play nice but the vendors have ignored their requests.
According to Councillor Usher, the vendors arrive on West Collett Canal in the wee hours of the morning and disturb residents. He says the Traffic Manager has tried to remove the vendors early in the morning but that he has been threatened and mobbed. Usher adds that as long as the vendors work within the prescribed timeline, they will be allowed to stay on the street side. If not, the City Council will go ahead with attempts to remove them. We’ll see how it goes.
