MANDEVILLE, Manchester — After waiting almost four months to resume making a living, vendors at Melrose Yam Park have been permitted to reopen their stalls following approval by the local health authority.

Speaking at yesterday’s monthly sitting of the Manchester Municipal Corporation Chief Executive Officer Winston Palmer said most of the vendors are expected to return to the facility, which had been closed in August for health breaches.

“…Other vendors are putting a few loose ends together with respect to licences and other health requirements that they are putting in place… Based on what is happening now, by this weekend most of the operators/vendors at the yam park will be up and running,” he said.

He disclosed that bar operators at the park have also been granted approval to reopen.

He commended the Manchester Health Department for its assistance with technical matters.

“The last meeting that the health department and the council had with the vendors, that went very well and they understood why it is important to have certain things in place, so that the health of the public can be protected,” Palmer said, adding that the facility will be monitored on a regular basis with the help of the health department.

Mayor of Mandeville Donovan Mitchell commended the staff at the municipal corporation.

“We had to give up some things… to facilitate the reopening. We understand as leaders what it is for people not to be going on with their livelihood and we are appealing to the [vendors] to take care of it,” he said.

The municipality, Mitchell said, is working on a maintenance schedule for the yam park “…to make sure we don’t go back to where we are coming from, because sometimes we just overlook some things and at the end of the day it costs us more to remedy than anything else”.

He insisted that only vendors who have met the stipulations of the health department will be allowed to operate at the park.

“I want to apologise to the persons that have waited so long, but to also note that only the persons who have met the criteria — in terms of their food handler’s permit, going to the training and all that is laid out in the document that we got from the health department as to what they are to do — will go back there,” he said.

“Until they have met the criteria, then they won’t enter,” he added.

Vendors told the Jamaica Observer recently that among the requirements outlined by the health department is for vendors to have metal or granite top tables, foot pedal-operated bins, sanitiser, and hand washing material in their stalls and wear aprons and hairnets.

Mitchell said all but one shop had been renovated at the facility due to non-compliance.

“The person refused [to] give up the keys so that the necessary work [could] be done. The order is that the shop is to remain closed and, as a matter of a fact, the directive was given for an additional padlock to be placed on it until the health [inspectors] have had the opportunity to go in the shop,” he said.