ST JAMES, Jamaica — The St James Municipal Corporation is examining ways to make the Charles Gordon Market more manageable for those who use it, especially vendors.

During a visit to the facility on Monday, chairman of the corporation, Mayor Richard Vernon, told Observer Online that some shop areas in the market are being eyed for other purposes.

“We have been looking at the Charles Gordon market strategically; we are repositioning some of the spaces that used to be designated for shop operations,” he remarked.

“We are looking to repurpose them to facilitate wholesale operation. One of the main challenges with the vendors in the market space is the competition between wholesalers and retailers,” he stated.

It was explained that the corporation has received complaints that wholesalers, who sell to vendors, are in the same space selling to patrons who visit the market and are selling at lower prices than vendors.
“We are creating a wholesaler section in the market, and to do that, we will have to repurpose some of the areas previously designated for shop operation,” he stated.

Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Richard Vernon, tours Charles Gordon market

He said in the area which they are looking at, many of the shops are unoccupied, and in many cases the occupiers of some of the shops are non-compliant, “which should allow for the new measures to be put in place, and therefore no one should be at a disadvantage”.

“Once you have the space properly demarcated for the wholesalers, they will come in, and those who sell their goods from their vehicles they will also be able to access that wholesaler section so they can park and sell, and then the retailers now will operate within the Gun Court area and the main market building,” he explained.

During the visit to the market on Monday, the mayor, along with councillors and teams from the corporation, did a walkthrough to get first-hand knowledge of the current situation.

Part of the walkthrough was to reinforce to vendors that street vending would not be tolerated going forward and that the vendors need to ply their wares in the facility.

“We are going to put those measures in place as well so that we can safeguard against the street vending and the anomalies associated with street vending because right now street vending, especially for those who are on the street selling market produce, to be honest, is undesirable; that is what it is,” he stated.

“The vendors they go on the street, and they leave a trail of waste behind them as they move through the area. They create disorder within the space, traffic congestion; they block up shop fronts that are in their legitimate space, and it is just a massive disorganised kind of environment, and we cannot continue to facilitate that. We cannot facilitate that type of culture”.

“We are going to organise the market, we are going to fix the issues in the market and we are going to provide a proper space so customers can feel safe and feel comfortable coming to shop for their ground produce, and that is what we are doing,” he declared.

Part of the fix, the mayor stated, will come from funds associated with the damage sustained to the main building during the passage of Hurricane Melissa.

“We have insurance for the main building that will be coming through shortly, and we’ll be using those funds to replace the roof of the main building and, of course, put in the lighting and fix up the infrastructure so it can facilitate regular conducive vending,” he disclosed.

Further to that, he said that the corporation will be improving the amenities and facilities so that vendors and patrons alike will be comfortable when they use the market space.

“We are going to expand our bathroom to improve the sanitary convenience for customers and vendors, and generally we’re going to do a massive clean-up of the market area,” he said.

“We’re not going to just clean up and leave it as is, but we are going to put systems in place to maintain the space. So, we are going to employ a company to carry out routine clean-up throughout the day and throughout the week,” he revealed.

He also added that more security will be deployed to tackle indisciplined behaviour that is encountered on a daily basis.

“We are going to look at the security measures to be put in place and the control of exit and entrance to the market so as to manage the access to the space and to keep vendors within a managed area,” he argued.