MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Vendors who ply their wares at the weekly wholesale market in the Central Car Park are calling on the Manchester Municipal Corporation to review a planned ban on the lucrative activity.

The vendors say the November 26 timeline for the ban to be implemented is unreasonable.

On Tuesday evenings vendors pay a fee and use the Central Car Park until the following Wednesday morning.

Marvin Warren, who sells pineapples, told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday that the ban would be a setback for many vendors like himself.

“It is one day that we come here and they are fighting us on the one little day, they have to do better.

Is here so we eat our little food and we are not making any trouble.

They have to do better than that for us.

Vendors plying their wares at the wholesale market in Central Car Park in Mandeville, Tuesday evening.

Mandeville wholesale market vendor Kristen Easy speaking with the Jamaica Observer Tuesday evening.

We are all Jamaican, we can’t go anywhere else to do anything, is here so we have to do what we have to do,” said Warren.

“The man [Mandeville Mayor Donovan Mitchell] came up here last Tuesday and said it is the last week we have here… You have to come and sit with us and talk to us and tell us what is going on… This is going to affect us badly, every food stop.

If you do this now you lockdown every food.

The children won’t be able to go to school.

I won’t be able to pay my bills.

Everything is jammed.

Even as a farmer I won’t have any money to spray my farm,” added Warren.

The proposal for them to be relocated to the back of the Mandeville Market has also been shut rejected by the wholesale vendors.

“If you are going to take everybody to put in the market we cannot hold over there, so if you have somewhere else nice to put us then no problem, but if you don’t have somewhere nice you have to resolve the problem,” argued Warren.

Fellow vendor Kristen Easy shared similar sentiments.

“They need to understand that people have bills to pay and when we come in here, it is not free, we have to pay and we have complied with all the measures that they have put in place in order for the wholesale market to go on.

Taxis in Central Car Park during the wholesale market in Mandeville, Tuesday evening. (Photos: Kasey Williams)

They are talking about…that when we come here we litter the place and we are causing congestion, but if you check it out it is not we [at fault], it is the taxi operators in here who block themselves on a daily basis,” said Easy.

“In the afternoon when they say we are to come here and sell at 4 o’clock the officers are already here turning the wholesale people away, so we can’t come up here until after the evening rush is off and it is basically night,” Easy added.

She pointed to the domino effect the ban would cause on the price of produce in the market.

“Again when you look at it they are saying they are going to move us and put us over in the market.

The vendors in the market don’t want us over there, because if we go over the market we sell at a different rate from them.

Basically the vendors in the market they come and buy from us to resell in the market,” claimed Easy.

Mitchell has pointed to congestion, complaints from taxi associations about chaos in the car park, and the prevalence of pickpockets as the reasons for the ban.

However, Easy said the security concerns of pickpockets is nothing new.

“Pickpocket was in Mandeville from day one and they know that.

Metro (municipal police) are here why they don’t use them and the police to curtail the pickpockets.

We as vendors are not trained to fight war.

We are not police.

We are merely vendors,” said Easy as she called for a review of the ban amid the festive season fast approaching.

“We are not here for a full day by 10:00 am on Wednesday we have to leave.

They need to go back to the tablet and revisit [the decision], because people have mouths to feed, people owe bills.

Look how people are living nowadays with not even a proper roof over our heads.

We are trying to make an honest living to provide for us and our families.

“From the get go they knew it was a taxi park, but still they came here and collected money from us.

If we are not welcome here why did they collect our money.

We have to pay to sell.

They are very unconscionable.

They are behaving like we are some wild animal.

We are people and we have needs to be met.

They are getting their honest salary so leave us alone to work our own too,” said Easy.

Sheryl Salmon, a food vendor has carved out a livelihood selling tea to other vendors and has used the income to finance her two daughter’s university education.

“When they move the vendors I don’t know how we are going to manage.

Who knows how my daughters are going to go to school, because this is what pays for [their tuition],” said Salmon.

Another vendor, Milton Forbes, questioned the rationale of the ban.

“The entire municipality will be affected, because the wholesale market brings the revenue to Mandeville.

People come here and buy what they want conveniently… This wholesale market brings revenue to the parish council and look at the market, take a good look at the market,” Forbes said in reference to the deplorable state of the Mandeville Market.

“Every one of us here has to pay a fee of $500.

We have been complying for years now.

The taxi operators who are complaining about congestion are the ones causing it themselves,” Forbes added.

But on Thursday a strident mayor told the Observer that the municipal corporation will not be backing down from the decision to relocate the wholesale market.

“The taxi stand was built for taxis for law and order in the town centre.

I have met two times with the wholesale vendors and I made it clear the second time that if they continue to cause [chaos] in the town centre then I am going to put a pause to the wholesale market,” said Mitchell “There is a time schedule for them to come into the park at 4:00 pm.

Most times they are there from before, so the taxi association has written to us to say if we continue to allow this to happen where will the taxis go as they are being prosecuted by the police.

“Central Car Park is going to go back to its normal state.

In the market the two old buildings will be removed and there is a good amount of space for the wholesale market to go,” added Mitchell.