High Court allows Breakfast Shed to remain open pending trial

The High Court has ruled that the his­toric Break­fast Shed may con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing pend­ing a full tri­al sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 2027, in a de­ci­sion wel­comed by its man­age­ment as a mea­sure of sta­bil­i­ty for ven­dors and pa­trons.

Robert Le Hunte, pres­i­dent of Femmes du Chalet Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed, said the rul­ing, de­liv­ered to­day, al­lows the long-stand­ing food hub to re­main open while the sub­stan­tive dis­pute with the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT) is de­ter­mined. Le Hunte was rep­re­sent­ed in court by Se­nior Coun­sel Kei­th Scot­land, as­sist­ed by at­tor­ney Al­liyah Cave, while UDe­COTT was rep­re­sent­ed by Ger­ald Ramdeen.

The court or­dered that an ex­ist­ing in­junc­tion re­main in place un­til the mat­ter is ful­ly heard, ef­fec­tive­ly pre­serv­ing the cur­rent op­er­a­tional sta­tus of the Break­fast Shed.

Le Hunte said the de­ci­sion was wel­come for ven­dors and the thou­sands who de­pend on the site, stress­ing that the case goes be­yond un­paid rent and con­cerns the preser­va­tion of a near­ly cen­tu­ry-old in­sti­tu­tion. He said ven­dors pre­vi­ous­ly op­er­at­ed for more than 75 years at the site now oc­cu­pied by the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel be­fore re­lo­cat­ing in the na­tion­al in­ter­est to fa­cil­i­tate de­vel­op­ment.

He added that the co-op­er­a­tive has paid more than $4 mil­lion over time to UDe­COTT, T&TEC and WASA, ar­gu­ing that long­stand­ing fi­nan­cial arrange­ments, in­clud­ing util­i­ty charges, must be con­sid­ered as part of the broad­er dis­pute.

Le Hunte said un­cer­tain­ty around the case has placed strain on ven­dors and fam­i­lies, but the rul­ing of­fers tem­po­rary re­lief while the mat­ter pro­ceeds to tri­al.

He al­so high­light­ed a re­cov­ery plan de­vel­oped by a new­ly ap­point­ed board un­der the Com­mis­sion­er for Co-op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment aimed at im­prov­ing gov­er­nance, ad­dress­ing debts and en­sur­ing long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty. He said the plan has not yet been for­mal­ly pre­sent­ed to UDe­COTT.

Le Hunte ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Scot­land and Cave for their rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and ac­knowl­edged ear­li­er work by Ken­neth Brown.

He said the co-op­er­a­tive re­mains com­mit­ted to di­a­logue and hopes for a prac­ti­cal res­o­lu­tion that se­cures the fu­ture of the Break­fast Shed as a cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic fix­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go.