Minister Miller told the Journal that inspectors from the Business License Unit of his ministry will begin \uff93spot checks\uff92 to address the growing number of roadside vendors, including, but not limited to, water depots and phone card booths.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93We will try to regulate it more efficiently than has been done in the past,\uff92 he said. \uffa0\uff93I can promise you that.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Parliamentary Secretary in Ministry of Health and Environment Ron Pinder said investigations last year revealed an estimated 70 to 80 percent of roadside vendors were not licensed. \uffa0<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93These were persons who sporadically decided that they wanted to enter into business and they just simply set up shop,\uff92 Mr. Pinder said.<\/P><\/p>\n
Minister Miller added that the first thing to be determined is whether the present vendors are selling their goods legally. \uffa0<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93We will have inspectors go out and determine whether persons operating those types of small business, if you want to call it that\uff85have a valid business license,\uff92 he said. \uff93If they don\uffb4t have one, we would have to determine whether we should allow them to secure a valid business license or ask them to cease and desist from operating at the spots that they are operating at.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Another Cabinet Minister also recently addressed the issue.<\/P><\/p>\n
Fred Mitchell, Foreign Affairs Minister and Member of Parliament for Fox Hill, said during his contribution to the budget debate that water depots and phone card booths are \uff93springing up\uff92 outside some neighbourhoods, devaluing properties.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93I appeal to both these (types of persons) who are using these depots and phone card stations and the persons who have these properties to remember they have a responsibility to help respect the integrity of their neighborhoods and the value of the properties in these neighborhoods,\uff92 Minister Mitchell said. \uffa0\uff93Certainly, we have to do our part in terms of the law to ensure that this erosion does not take place.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
He said zoning laws need to be updated to maintain the integrity of neighborhoods. \uffa0<\/P><\/p>\n
Having grown up in Centreville which started out as a residential area and then changed over time into a commercial district, Minister Mitchell said people who leave the inner city and move into neighborhoods like Eastwood or Sans Souci don\uffb4t expect the integrity of their neighborhoods to be compromised.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93They sometimes invest a quarter of a million dollars or more for these homes,\uff92 he pointed out. \uffa0\uff93They deserve to have their neighborhood and its integrity as a residential neighborhood protected. \uffa0It seems to me to do otherwise would be to undermine deliberately, their investment. \uffa0For most people, their home is the largest investment they will ever make.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Minister Mitchell said some property owners are at fault to some degree as they reportedly lease their land to roadside vendors.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Pinder, meanwhile, said the Ministry of Works and Utilities, the Business License Unit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Royal Bahamas Police Force continue to work with his Ministry to address this concern.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93It is clearly an issue that falls mainly in the jurisdiction of zoning,\uff92 he said. \uffa0\uff93It also poses traffic problems for police because persons do not have adequate parking space to pull off the road to buy the goods.\uff92 <\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Pinder added that a position paper has been drafted and will be forwarded to cabinet for a policy decision on roadside vendors.<\/P><\/p>\n
Hadassah Hall, The Bahama Journal<\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inspectors from the Ministry of Trade and Industry as of today will be cracking down on roadside vendors operating without a business license, Minister Leslie Miller said yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}