By Sandra Singh Tuesday, January 22 2008

Vendors at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain were yesterday left counting their losses as many registered poor sales during the staging of the Panorama North/East preliminaries on Sunday.

The irate vendors have attributed the lack of sales to a large number of illegal vendors who opened up for business on Sunday. Many also complained that the lack of water and electricity supply in some of the booths also caused goods to remain unfrozen and eventually spoil.

Yesterday, the vendors claimed that while they were accustomed to having thousands of dollars in sales each year, sales on Sunday amounted to only a few hundred dollars.

One vendor, Lena Francis complained that while she was expecting good sales, most of the food items and beverages she prepared remained untouched. Another vendor added that she only managed to get $145 in sales with others registering a meagre $140.

They claimed that the number of illegal vendors on site on Sunday was one of the main reasons sales were severely curtailed.

“In the beginning they promised that there wouldn’t be any illegal vendors but there were a lot of them on Sunday,” said one vendor.

She added that stricter regulations with regard to illegal vending should be implemented with regular checks being made for vendors without licences.

Several complaints were also made over the lack of electricity and water supply in some of the booths. One vendor told Newsday that most of the meat products he bought were spoilt due to the lack of electricity.

He added that there was also a lack of proper toilet facilities for the vendors. Vendors located at Queen’s Park East also added that the steel bands should have taken a route closer to their booths so patrons could have had easier access to them.

They added that the route the bands took, via Jerningham Avenue, prevented them from maximising sales.

President of the Carnival Entrepreneurship Association, Juliet La Vou also told Newsday that the fence that was erected in front of the booths also inhibited sales since patrons were unable to gain direct access to the booths.

However, members of the Fence Vendors Association said while there may have been a lot of “hiccups during the preliminaries” compromises would sometimes have to be made.

They added that measures should be put in place to curb the number of illegal vendors.