A child selling plums in a small box to earn his lunch money yesterday could not convince Town Clerk Errol Greene not to throw away his goods, as he, like several vendors in Half-Way-Tree, felt the full brunt of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation’s (KSAC’s) demolition crew who, in less than an hour after descending on the area, filled two trucks with seized items and broken stalls.

The distraught youngster was too emotional to speak with the Observer as he melted into the large crowd after Greene gripped him firmly by the hand and wrestled the box from his grasp.

“Is mi mother send me come sell them fi go school,” the boy said, clinging to the small box. The coins in the bottom of the box appeared to be his evening’s sale, but those, too, were thrown into the pile of debris as the child walked away.

As dusk fell, Kingston mayor Desmond McKenzie and a crew, including security personnel, headed into the commercial district to cart away stalls and other items.

Within minutes it appeared as if the situation would get out of hand as one policeman forcefully removed a bag from the back of a vendor who was peddling key chains on a makeshift display board.

A large crowd quickly descended as the crew went to work smashing stalls with sledge hammers and loading them into trucks.

McKenzie later told the Observer that they had filled two of the six trucks within an hour. “What is here is not vending, it is a mini dump,” he said.

The shoemakers at the Esso gas station along North Odeon Avenue thought packing away their goods behind an enclosed area at the facility would have helped. However, the mayor instructed the workers to ferret out the stalls and bags of shoes and load them onto the truck.

But an impassioned plea from a shoemaker who begged McKenzie not to throw away his customers’ shoes as he would be held liable, yielded some fruit as the mayor eventually relented and allowed the items to be retrieved.

Another shoemaker who rushed to secure his stall found himself staring down at a sledge hammer being waved by crew members who forcefully removed it from his grasp, before smashing it.

Alvin Small, a shoemaker who has been working there for 18 years, admitted that they were offered a space at the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre, but said the $30,000 a month rental was not affordable.

There was, however, no great chaos, as most of the vendors, especially those selling at the entrance to Mandela Park, packed up their goods and demolished their own stalls ahead of yesterday’s five o’clock deadline for vendors to leave the streets.

These vendors said they would be conforming with the mayor and would be staying off the streets for the next two weeks, giving the KSAC time to restructure vending in the area.