Downtown Kingston vendors who have relied on a “Run, run, run” signal at the arrival of the police to clear sidewalks blocked with their back-to-school and other items are seeking a two-week break from the hassle, from the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC).

Kingston mayor, Senator Delroy Williams on Thursday indicated the possibility of the two-week pause in the raids by the police, often referred to as the “Run, run, run” signal for vendors, which he insisted had to be supported by co-operation with the KSAMC as well as increased efforts by the vendors to manage their areas.

However, he has been insisting that it be done without blocking the sidewalks and interfering with businesses and shoppers searching for back-to-school items.

Mayor Williams advised the meeting — filled with a large number of the vendors, mainly women, at the KSAMC’s Church Street head office — that the corporation is going to look at the matter again this week, with the likelihood of agreeing to the two-week break from the seasonal raids endorsed by the members of the municipality.

“We are going to look at it but we want a better plan for South Parade,” he assured the vendors, recalling that work has just started on improving the shelter-less Jamaica Urban Transit Company’s (JUTC) terminal in the centre of Parade, downtown, where hundreds of commuters wait for lengthy periods on buses to all parts of the city and St Catherine.

Williams said KSAMC is willing to invite the vendors back to assess the situation after the two-week exercise in leniency regarding the sale of their back-to-school items, wherever possible, in the heart of downtown shopping area. Other overcrowded areas are also likely to be affected by the decision.

“The vendors have asked for it and they are business people. They are saying that this is a high [sales] period of business within the space and they want to take advantage of it. As a municipality we are here to create the climate for business and we are here to encourage the climate for business to flourish and generate employment — and if we can do that in an orderly way, why not?” he responded.

However, he reminded the vendors that the municipality has a practice of treating with special activities, including blocking roads during most of the period. He noted that the back-to-school time is one of heavy spending by parents, when vendors are far more active than normal as the September term — the first for the school year — approaches.

“And during those periods special allowances are given as a practice, and this is to encourage business activities within the area,” he noted. However, the mayor criticised the vendors for their treatment of the areas allotted to them in the past, and warned them that their lack of persuasion has led to deterioration in their pursuit of free enterprise, due to the fact that they are not structured enough.

“Part of the challenge is that you have to be structured when you are downtown, and part of the challenge is that a lot of us are not willing to change our ways. You can’t tell me that you want to continue with something like that, that you want to develop downtown in the interest of the vendors and those who are buying, but when I walk down there and see the conditions that you sell in it is a disgrace,” he pointed out.

“You are not co-operating and you want to continue in the same way, people want to sell the same way. They want to stand up on the roadside and throw the cabbage skin on the street, and when they are gone home other people supposed to come and take them up. If you don’t take them up they block the road, and they say that the Government is not doing anything.

“I keep saying that the municipality wants to do things but we need money. If we had the money, trust me, the place would have been spic and span. It’s not that we don’t want to do it, we just don’t have the money and the resources to do it; but because we don’t have all the money to do it, we need cooperation to make the task easier,” he reasoned.

The mayor severely criticised vendors who sell agricultural products close to broken sewage mains and gullies, as well as those who continue to block the sidewalks, shops, and other business places without consideration for the public and children.

He noted that illegal vending on Beckford Street and other sections of downtown Kingston has long been an inconvenience to motorists, pedestrians, and formal business operators, with no indication that it will stop anytime soon and that cooperaion will set in to accommodate both shop and stall vendors.