Hard to swallow

HOW HARD is it for Tobago authorities to include vendors meaningfully in their plans for Swallow’s Beach?

On August 23, chaos erupted along the road leading to the Pigeon Point Heritage Park. Ten vendors’ stalls were torn down. It was a completely needless episode.

“I mind all my children here, my grandchildren, my great-grand, everybody,” said Bernadette Maxime, who had been selling on the spot for over 30 years. “I now have children selling here, I have grandchildren selling here, my daughters-in-law and everybody. This is our living; this is what we live by.”

The police crackdown was apparently inspired by Tobago’s ongoing anti-crime initiative in the wake of a spike in murders and a much-publicised walkabout by top cop Erla Harewood-Christopher and Minister in the Ministry of National Security Keith Scotland. One officer spoke of “information,” “intelligence” and a desire to nip in the bud the selling of illegal drugs.

However, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Farley Augustine spoke of a long-term need for “cleaning the area nicely and making the area much more suitable, ensuring that it falls in line with all the health codes.

“While they are being moved today, please be assured there is a bigger plan that includes them, for which they are part of the planning and the consultation,” Mr Augustine said.

The “planning” and “consultation” appear to have had limits.

“I don’t know how we’re going to survive, because we don’t know how long we can stay away from here selling, don’t know how we’re paying rent, how we sending the grandchildren to school,” said Ms Maxime.

Other THA officials said the area had begun to look “ad-hoc” and claimed the police wanted to move the vendors since last year and had been begging them to leave.

None of these accounts suggest the sellers have a sense of certainty in terms of how they fit into the THA’s long-term plan for the area. On the contrary, it all suggests they are viewed merely as a hazard and an eyesore.

By this week, vendors had returned, supplied by THA officials with tents and other items.

They will be allowed to stay, said area representative Joel Sampson, until the assembly puts up a more permanent structure in the not-too-distant future.

“We have the designs and everything,” he said on August 27, in a disclosure that only further underlines the sense of disconnect raised by this episode.

In recent years, Swallow’s Beach, for which there is no entry fee, has been growing as an attraction.

For it to fully take its place alongside Pigeon Point and Store Bay, authorities need to remember the vendors who have helped it develop in the first place.