A?TEMPORARY?MARKET?at Cheapside for the Barbados Association of Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs (BARVEN) may not be so temporary after all.
In a telephone interview yesterday, BARVEN president Alister Alexander said they had not received permission to relocate to Spring Garden and were making preparations to make the market permanent.
“We are in discussion with Government to have the place renovated. We were supposed to be there on a temporary basis [and then] move to Spring Garden, but Government has never given us the green light,” he said.
Alexander said this explained why the stalls looked as though they were never meant to be permanent structures.
“The place is in a state. We can no longer continue to operate this way, it is not a good image for the association. We would like to have a more aesthetically pleasing environment for our customers,” he said.
On a brighter note, Alexander said Christmas sales were excellent, with some vendors saying they needed help to deal with the influx of customers.
“Christmas was good in the BARVEN market, for certain. People came for everything from cucumbers, sorrel and tomatoes to beans and even coconut water, although peas were scarce so we had to use imported peas,” he said.
As for the future, Alexander said he was hopeful as “vending was one profession which could survive the recession”.
Alexander added they were also seeking to “better organize vending from next year from a commercial point of view” though he declined to go into detail. (CA)
