TWENTY-FIVE Merriman Mall vendors, barbers and cosmetologists, have signed a petition to Mayor Patricia Chase-Green for a permanent structure or building to be constructed for them at the site between Cummings and Light Streets. The Guyana Chronicle understands that the request by the vendors will be taken to the full council on Monday, and should there be a majority of councillors agreeing, then this will be the way that City Hall will go.
Currently, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is in breach of the rules governing the municipality, one of which is that barbers and cosmetologists should be conducting their business within the confines of a building or structure. After evicting several vendors last week, City Hall has allowed to remain those barbers and cosmetologists who are said to be keeping their work environment clean.
Reports are that if the vendors’ request is granted, they will have to pay for light and water on their own.
A source told the Guyana Chronicle on Friday that the request has found favour with the mayor since those plying their trades will be in a better position to be monitored by public health inspectors.
The mayor, the source continued, has also taken into account that many of the cosmetologists who want to operate on the Merriman Mall are single mothers who are in need.
Just last week, after the mayor said these vendors had one month to remove from Merriman Mall, Town Clerk Royston King and a team swooped down at the facility and dismantled several stalls in the dead of night, and without giving any notice.
One vendor told the media subsequently that he had received word that the reason behind moving him and the rest of the vendors is to make the area into a parking lot that will facilitate parking meters.
Chase-Green had said that the original intention was for the vendors to be relocated to Merriman Mall on a temporary basis, and now that they are proving to be untidy, remaining on a permanent basis is now out of the question.
One vendor who had previously told the Guyana Chronicle that she was willing to work along with the guidelines of the M&CC is of the view that the M&CC has provided them with only empty promises.
“They take us from off the streets and giving us empty promises. We were maintaining the spots. They could have told us of their dissatisfaction. It is a deception, because you just come and meet your stuff on the road,” the woman said.
“It appears as though these people bullying poor people. Is we vote for these people. Before they become mayor and town clerk, they come out on the road and give us all assurances that they will help us and this is what these people turn out to. They turn their back on us after we finish voting for them and they get what they want. These people just studying to make money. Nothing they ain’t doing for poor people,” one barber lamented.