KINGSTON, Jamaica — Mayor Angela Brown-Burke took to the downtown business district this morning in an effort to bring stores without trade licences into compliance.

The mayor, who traveled with Deputy Mayor Andrew Swaby, town clerk Errol Greene and a team from the Kingston & St Andrew Corporation, moved from store to store checking for licences.?Brown-Burke said this move was necessary as currently only 20 per cent of stores in the corporate area comply with licensing and payments, resulting in collections of only $10 million where there is a potential for $75 million.

She said they are starting Downtown but will be going throughout Kingston and St Andrew.?"We will check for actual trade licenses so we'd be able to see if they have it. We will check our data for arrears and have a discussion on how they plan to bring it up to date," Brown-Burke said.?"For those stores that are not in the database, it means they have never [registered] and never paid. We will also capture that and give them the data they will need."

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