More stalls demolished in Soesdyke

Feb 08, 2009 News

Workmen under orders from the Ministry of Public Works swooped down with police escorts and demolished some stalls located at the junction of the Soesdyke/Linden Highway. The workers demolished three stalls, but left a snackette intact.

The stalls that were demolished yesterday.

Workmen had been there the day before to remove the stalls, but they did not have the police with them, and the stallholders would not cooperate. “If the people don’t move their things, we can’t do anything. They still have goods in their stalls, and there are only six of us (Ministry workers) and so many of them (stallholders),” said one of the Public Works workers.
Due to the volume of the goods that were in the stalls, the stallholders had difficulty clearing them.
Public Works Minister Robeson Benn said that the stalls occupied the Government reserve. “That entire section is all Government reserve,” Benn said, “and it represents a serious traffic problem.”
He said that trucks and other vehicles stop in the vicinity to purchase things from the stalls. The other stalls, after the turnoff to Linden, have been pushed back off the road, and they no longer pose a threat to road traffic, said the minister.
One of the stallholders, Patricia Beepat, said that in 2007 the stalls did occupy the Government’s land, but they had moved back. “We are more than 50 feet from the middle of the road, and off of the Government’s land,” said Beepat.
The snackette was left untouched by the ministry’s workers, who said that they were told to only remove the other stalls. Beepat and the other stallholders whose stalls were demolished said they were contemplating legal action, because they knew they were not on the reserve, as the minister claimed.

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