GEORGETOWN Mayor Patricia Chase-Green has reached the end of her tether with barbers and cosmetologists on Merriman Mall, between Cummings and Light Streets.They are not keeping their end of the bargain, which is to keep their surroundings clean, she told the Guyana Chronicle following Monday’s statutory meeting at City Hall, and as such she’s left no alternative but to ask them to leave.

“They have to clean up their act; they have another month to find somewhere to move,” she said.

The City Council had relocated these individuals from off the streets to Merriman Mall, and had even provided tents for them to ply their trade, on condition that they would pay an environmental fee of $1000, and keep their surroundings clean.

As the mayor explained to the Guyana Chronicle, their relocation to Merriman Mall was just temporary, but because of their untidiness, remaining on a permanent basis is now out of the question. “We tried to assist them by relocating them; we gave them a tent at our expense, but now they have to remove,” she said.

The matter was first raised at the statutory meeting, with Chase-Green saying that what the vendors have done to Merriman Mall has only served to embarass the Council.

“We will not tolerate it. The Council agreed, by a recommendation from the Markets Public Health Committee, that they should have been gone long ago; we tried our utmost to ensure that no one is left without sending their child to school or providing them a meal by having them there, but it is not in the best interest of the city, the condition that place is being left in,” Chase-Green told councillors.

She said many of the said vendors have not even been fulfilling their obligation to pay the environmental fee. “They have three barbers there who have the place looking good compared to the female cosmetologists; the men showing the women them up on that place. We can’t tolerate that kind of lawlessness,” the mayor further lamented.

NOT MOVING
The barbers and cosmetologists in question are, however, adamant that they will not be removing from the said location, and that they are not even aware that the mayor has been contemplating to move them. “Where she want us to go now? In space?” one barber questioned.

The barbers said that they pay their own money to weed their surroundings and clean the trench behind them that runs along Church Street.

Another barber said that they make it a point to empty their garbage at Bourda Market, because the garbage disposal facility was removed by the City Council after the business people on Church Street started abusing it.

The barbers complained of the social rejects (junkies) who would sleep on Merriman Mall and dirty the place once the vendors would have left.

Some tents have been observed empty and broken down, and one barber surmised that the vendors for these left this location to return to the streets to ply their trade. When the rain falls and throw down the tents, there is no one there to clean up.

One vendor, a cosmetologist, said she is willing to work with the guidelines provided by the City Council but she said she will not be moving from the facility.

Another barber said he feels they were tricked into moving to Merriman Mall just so that things would go smoothly for the jubilee celebrations.