WHILE the St Catherine Parish Council has said that it is desperately trying to remove five fish vendors from the entrance to the Linstead Market, the vendors have said that they are being unfairly treated, as the market is still under construction and they are losing sales inside the appointed fish house.

But a member of the St Catherine Parish Council, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Jamaica Observer that the vendors in question were disobedient, as each time they are arrested and taken to court, as soon as they got out, they returned to the market gate.

“They think it is a God-given right to sell in front of the gate. As a result, the market gate is in a deplorable condition,” the parish council worker said.

“You have had people who are going into the market and slide out there. We are fortunate that we don’t have a lawsuit yet,” he added.

The worker said that of the five, three will run away as soon as they see members of the municipal police approaching, but two will persistently remain and one will even pull a knife at members of the council.

That matter he said is before the court.

But Nyoka ‘Genie’ Graham, the vendor accused of pulling a knife at a member of the parish council, said that she is only trying to make a living to take care of herself, her five children and two grandchildren. She admitted to having three cases before the court, including one for pulling a knife at the parish council worker.

Suggesting that she does not sell outside the market gate, but immediately upon entry to the facility – where she was seen by the Sunday Observer team on Wednesday – Graham said that she moved there because she cannot get sales when she is forced to operate from the section set up for fish vending far away at the back of the building. Along with that, she said, the market is still closed for refurbishing.

“When they close it in 2012, all the food people were placed somewhere else (close to the police station), so we were around the back and nobody not really coming around there because the market empty. So we can’t really sell around there so. Mi go ’round there how much time and have to come back around here,” Graham said. “You can’t stay round there any at all because you can’t sell. And round there you can’t stay at night because gunman likely to hold you up and rob you,” she went on.

The 42-year-old Graham said that she has been selling fish in the Linstead Market for 22 years adding that it was the only ‘trade’ that she knew.

“This is my trade and three different times they carry me go court,” she said. “We are inside the market, not outside, and sometimes five or six of us trying to get the sale. At one point we couldn’t go round the back at all, because it was fixing and we had nowhere else to go. Where they want to send us nobody could find us, so they definitely trying to hide us. So that mean we must come with the fish and re-ice and re-ice until we have to throw them away because we can’t re-ice no more,” she said.

Graham said that three weeks ago, a member of the St Catherine Parish Council confiscated her goods, some 120 pounds of fish valued at close to $100,000.

“You see if we on the outside and him say we must move, we will run and sell, but nobody not expecting him to come inside of the market to take away you goods. And that is what him do. Because this is vending, everybody is vending inside here. I was right inside here and him say this basket must seize, and him fling on the handcuff on my hand, pull mi out of the market and they take away the whole basket of fish. Another time him say mi point knife at him. So is three times mi and him deh courthouse,” Graham said.

Graham stated that she is due back in court on May 19, June 19 and again on July 7.

She said that despite being forced to ‘run up and down’, vendors are being charged $100 or $150 per day in market fees.

“They tell us that no care what happen, we can’t win parish council,” Graham said. “But we not here to win. We here to sell and go home. Is food mi come to look for me and mi pickney dem,” the angry vendor said.

However, the parish council member said that the market has been reopened, as refurbishing has ended for the time being.

“Year in, year out, we have this sort of problem with this set of people,” he said. “Nothing is wrong with the fish house. The market was closed last year September and Tankwell was doing some repairs, but it is open now,” he said.

But some food vendors have said that the only areas of the market which have been repaired since the closure are the canteen and the bathroom.

“And is because they collect $50 from us every time we go to use the bathroom,” said one vender seen selling a variety of food items. “That’s the only thing they try to work on fast enough and is because they getting money from it. They only collect money where they can gather money from,” the vendor continued.

Denise Worrell, another fish vendor spotted immediately outside the market’s entrance, said that she has been selling at that spot for over 17 years.

She said that members of the parish council go there three times per week, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, but said that because these are the busiest days, she still has to come out to catch the needed sale.

“If mi round there (fish house) mi couldn’t even bruk mi ducks!’ Worrell said. “When mi out here so, five minutes time somebody pass and mi get sale.”

She said that while she has never been arrested, she has to be on guard, grabbing her basket of fish and running inside when the men approach.

The parish council worker said that on Tuesdays, no vehicular traffic can pass by the market unless the police or members of the parish council are present, because on the very busy days, vendors leave inside the market to pedal their wares on the street. He said that the fish vendors are no different.

“You can’t have fish selling in the gutter water or where the skip is where they throw all kinds of rubbish,” he said. “It is unsanitary for them to do that. If they don’t remove from there, then we will always be confiscating their fishes and deliver it to some institutions.”

And while the fish vendors said that they were under attack, at least one food vendor inside the market, Marva Smith said that she too has been harassed and pepper sprayed. That matter has been referred to the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM).

She said that on February 22 she was sitting at her stall inside the market when she tried to intervene in an altercation between members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and her daughter, and was pepper sprayed after being accused of using indecent language.

“I went to the eye doctor and I have another appointment to go back the 10th of this month. I went to the medical doctor twice and I get a certificate. A man from INDECOM come right here and take a statement from me, because when they pepper spray mi I had witness.

“When him pepper spray mi, I go under a stall and they give me some more dose. The lady for that stall had to seek medical attention too. They say they charging me for indecent language because they took a box off my daughter head and I told them they can’t do that. But I am not letting them get the upperhand. I am defending my own, even if I have to dead for it,” Smith said.