SGRC warns vendors against illegal pavement sales

The San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) is warn­ing ven­dors against il­le­gal pave­ment vend­ing in and around the San­gre Grande Mar­ket, say­ing en­force­ment ac­tion will con­tin­ue against those op­er­at­ing in breach of the Mar­ket Bye-Laws, 1996.

The cor­po­ra­tion re­mind­ed the pub­lic that un­der Sec­tion 14 of the Mar­ket (San­gre Grande) Bye-Laws, no per­son is al­lowed to sell or of­fer goods for sale with­in a one-mile ra­dius of the mar­ket. The cor­po­ra­tion said any­one who breach­es the reg­u­la­tion com­mits an of­fence.

The SGRC said de­spite re­peat­ed warn­ings from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials, there has been an in­crease in il­le­gal vend­ing on pave­ments and in front of busi­ness­es in San­gre Grande.

Ac­cord­ing to the cor­po­ra­tion, the prac­tice cre­ates con­ges­tion, san­i­ta­tion is­sues and af­fects reg­is­tered ven­dors op­er­at­ing in­side the mar­ket.

The SGRC said pa­trols and en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es will con­tin­ue and warned that goods could be seized and of­fend­ers pros­e­cut­ed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that sev­er­al pave­ment ven­dors al­ready have reg­is­tered stalls at the San­gre Grande Mar­ket on the Cu­napo South­ern Main Road but have not oc­cu­pied them.

Busi­ness own­ers on An­dre Street have al­so com­plained that ven­dors are block­ing en­trances to their es­tab­lish­ments. Ven­dors were re­port­ed­ly is­sued copies of the mar­ket bye-laws and in­formed of the reg­u­la­tions.