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(SNO) — Coconut vendors along the Gros Islet Highway are making it clear that they do not intend to move to a new location as dictated by the Gros Islet Constituency Council (GICC).
The GICC placed no-vending signs along the highway and police showed up in the area on Tuesday. but the vendors were defiant and put up their own signs.
One read, ‘Saint Lucia is for all of us, not some’ while another said, ‘Tax incentive to Ojolab, EC$24 millin to Sandals, no incentives for the poor man’ — and still another said, ‘We must survive in our country’.
Sylvester Clifford, a vendor, told reporters that the whole thing is being done for big businesses.
He said in creole that the big and the small are supposed to live together and one cannot survive without the other.
Concerns have been raised over vending in the area and a compromise was reached to have the vendors relocated miles away in Bois D’orange.
One vendor told HTS that toilets and shelters were promised in the new location but nothing was done.
“And they just want us to move, so we not moving,” she stated.
The vendors claim that their livelihood is now at stake.
“There is no foot traffic, there is no mall, you are not going to sell,” the vendor stated. “Not everyone wants the coconut water in a bottle, they want the coconut itself and there are people who work around and they come to buy their coconut every day.”
At this point, it is unknown what will be the next move of the GICC.
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