IT’S more profitable to sell goods outside the walls of the Mandeville market. That’s the story of the vendors who operate in the town and they’re sticking to it.

On a recent visit to the market, situated on a hill in the centre of the Manchester capital, they told the Sunday Observer that initiatives being implemented by the Manchester Parish Council to get them inside won’t work. Some said the facility is unable to accommodate them all, some felt the layout is disorganised, and others said business is better on the outside.

“I sell inside sometimes and I sell outside, too,” confessed Otis Gayle who has been selling oranges at the facility for over five years.

“When I sell inside I don’t make nuh money; outside better. How the saying go? ‘Early bird catches the most worm’? Well, is that mi a deal wid. Some people (shoppers) can’t bother go all the way in the market. Sometimes they on some quick move and when you out here they just buy fast and move again,” he said.

He has heard the pleas for vendors to operate from inside the market, but it is something he says he will never do.

“Dat a wah dem a seh! Before so, market mash up — you will see!” he said loudly. “Anytime they seh ‘inside the market!’ Me stop sell! Different work!”

His fellow vendors agreed, some even rationalising that those who only sell for a few days a week should be allowed to do business outside, while those who sell throughout the week should be required to stay inside the building.

To get inside the market, patrons have to wade through a sea of vendors and their goods at the entrance. However, it is slim pickings once they do manage to get inside, as nearly 80 per cent of the stalls are empty.

Those vendors who do stay inside, abhor the deteriorating conditions. They say the market leaks, there is inadequate lighting, and that thieves are rampant. Their anger is directed at the parish council.

As if to back up their claims, rainwater from afternoon showers, which had begun only moments earlier, dripped steadily from the ceiling during the Sunday Observer’s visit.

“The whole place a leak from long, long time,” honey and roots higgler Marcia Mendez wailed. “If the rain fall the right way you think you outside! We have to be covering up the things or take up the goods and move somewhere else.”

A few metres away Carmen Morrison pulled a blue tarpaulin over the aluminum pots she sells to prevent them from getting wet.

“I come Monday morning and is three of my pots gone,” she fumed. “They tief off the things off the stall. They cut the tarpaulin (also used to cover her goods at nights), cut the rope and when you come sometimes all five to six of my pots gone.”

“It (the market) need security,” Morrison said. “We went up to the market office and complain, but up to now nobody don’t seh anything to us. We want to see security and the market (roof) fix because we can’t carry them (goods) home; we have to leave them here.”

“All 12 o’clock a night the market gate dem still open, so people just come in and tief you goods,” added Mary Dawkins in a tone more angry than Morrison’s.

She said the situation is especially unfair since persons like herself have complied with the council’s requirement of paying $500 per week in market fees and $2,500 in registration fees to receive identification cards.

In addition, each bag of goods attracts a cost of $100.

“So even if you pack up you goods and take them home, if you carry it back the next morning or five times for the week, you have to pay for the same bag five times,” Dawkins said.

But it’s not the fees that concern her, she says. It’s the conditions under which they are made to ply their wares. Even so, she says that for all its ills, the Mandeville market — where she has been selling for some 40 years — is not the worst.

“First time, people (shoppers) used to come in here a lot, but not again ’cause nuff people selling on the outside. But it still work out better selling in here ’cause rain and sun not suppose to be burning and wetting me — after mi not rock stone!” she said, laughing. “To me, Mandeville market is the best compared to other markets that I go and see. (Even) our bathroom in good condition.”

Dry goods vendor Linnette Williams, who said she has been selling in the market since it opened its doors in 1955, named her two major problems as having her goods get wet and the lack of lighting in her section of the market.

“We ask for light but they tell us is condemn(ed) area so they can’t put up any,” Williams says. “The place stay bad when it fall — like now. When it fall hard the water just running through like river. See, I have to put up plastic at the window to stop the water from blowing in,” she says, pointing to a nearby window frame covered with plastic. “The market nasty when rain fall bad.”

Finding the market office requires dodging raindrops and skipping over puddles. Once there, we meet parish council maintenance supervisor George Wallace, who quickly tries to dispel some of the vendors’ claims. On the subject of lighting, he walks briskly to a box on the outside wall of his office, flicks some switches and light floods the space.

“Lights are maintained ever since the market build,” he says. “Every time a bulb go bad we replace it. But they shouldn’t concern themselves about the light because market open from six (am) to six (pm), so they don’t really need lights. Over that time they are on their own. There are times when some are here up to all 10:00 pm. The lights are on right through the night and turn off in the morning.”

On the matter of security, Wallace said when vendors leave goods in their stalls, they do so at their own risk. When theft occurs, he added, it’s a result of their not locking their merchandise inside cupboards built into the concrete stalls.

He goes as far as saying that where stealing occurs, it happens during market hours, when some vendors have already left but the market may still be busy. He said thieves may have familiarised themselves with the guards, tracked their whereabouts at any given time, and struck when they were out of sight.

Problems such as these, he said, could be effectively addressed by the system which started in July last year, requiring all vendors to register with the council and get ID cards.

“Every vendor in the market is asked to register,” Wallace told the Sunday Observer. “So far we have over 300 who have already registered for IDs.”

Of that number, 203 have been issued with IDs. However, the process is not going as the council would have liked, as a number of vendors have yet to submit the required passport-sized photo, a recommendation (from a JP, senior police personnel or pastor), their Taxpayer Registration Number (TRN) and national identification card.

“If you don’t register, you not legal to sell in the market,” Wallace emphasised. “So if you not registered you can’t have a stall and you can’t get a stall without an ID.”

As for the leaky roof, Wallace agreed that it is part of the reason why so many vendors remained on the streets, but said he wasn’t convinced repairing it would change the situation.

“Whether it wetting or not, they don’t want to come in,” he insisted.