Hanover Municipal Corporation evicts St Catherine vendors
HANOVER, Jamaica — The Hanover Municipal Corporation on Thursday evicted three St Catherine vendors from the Cleveland Stanhope Market in Lucea.
According to chairman of the Hanover Municipal Corporation Sheridan Samuels, the vendors who sell perishable items at the facility were asked to return home after it was discovered that they are residents of St Catherine which is under lockdown.
He added that their goods were left in the custody of a vendor who is from a Kingston address.
“We went out today [Thursday] and found them coming in from St Catherine, and we actually shut them down. The goods [perishable items] were here already, so we asked them to find somebody who could dispose of [sell] it for them, and we asked them to actually go home back until this [COVID -19 pandemic] is over,” said Samuels, who is also Mayor of Lucea.
Mayor Samuels noted that while the St Catherine vendors are not registered with the municipality, they have been plying their wares at the facility and paying market fees for quite some time.
The parish of St Catherine, which has been under lockdown since last week Wednesday, is currently the epicentre of positive coronavirus cases in the country.
And with the parish of Hanover having no confirmed case, the Hanover Municipal Corporation is currently monitoring vendors who ply their wares at markets in the parish which fall under its purview.
Reports are that local vendors at the Cleveland Stanhope Market became suspicious on Thursday after the three vendors arrived at the facility with new stock.
Despite the vendors observing protocols such as wearing masks and utilising hand sanitisers, the local vendors decided that they were not taking the risk of someone unknowingly returning to the parish with the virus. The Hanover Municipal Corporation was subsequently alerted.
The parish of Hanover is currently the only parish in the country with no confirmed case of the deadly disease.
“No one wants to hear that we get a case. Everybody wants it to stay at zero. So, that level of consciousness is within the citizens of Hanover,” Samuels argued.
ANTHONY LEWIS
