Posted by Dillyfish on September 24, 2001 at 12:41:30:
(Nassau Guardian) Released Monday, September 24, 2001 at 10:07 am EST by Anthony Capron. Straw vendors on Tuesday will begin to utilize a huge tent, that has been set up on Bay Street as a temporary market until a new and improved building has been constructed to replace the one destroyed by the fire.
To be fair and to prevent clashes over who gets which stall, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said that
vendors will choose numbers by lottery and all those with numbers will be in the temporary structure. There
are 560 stalls and the 528 vendors who were registered in the old Market Plaza will be taken care of first as
well as there will be an effort to try and resolve any arguments over ownership of a particular stall because
some vendors had disputed the ownership of stalls in the old straw market building. The Prime Minister also
said that some persons who worked on the wharf would be considered for the remaining stalls.
Now that their business is being sorted out, the vendors need to stop arguing among themselves and start
looking out for each other. When they receive their stall numbers and positions, they should accept
whatever they get and do not grumble and carry on. Grumbling and complaining would only serve to prevent
the vendors from getting back to the business of making money and pleasing the tourists who look forward
to seeing the world famous straw vendors.
So vendors cannot afford to waste time. Every second counts, especially since no one knows what shape the
tourism industry will be in the near future. Everything is at a stand still until the Americans decide how they
want to go after the people who carried out the terrorists attacks in the U.S. or when they will feel comfortable
enough to take air travel again.
Further, the Prime Minister urged the vendors to join National Insurance so that they could be covered in
case of injuries and retirement. This is important and vendors should heed his advice, but they also need to
go a step further. Immediately after the destruction of the straw market many vendors claimed that they did
not have any savings, and they literally depended on daily or weekly earnings from the sales of their
merchandise.
The vendors who find themselves this with problem need to create some type of savings plan. If tourism is
hit in any way, these vendors may be headed for some serious financial difficulties. There are many vendors
out there who probably have some type of savings and who know how to handle their money. Maybe they
should take to mentoring the others. If the government and others in society did not move quickly to give the
vendors money, many people would have suffered. Therefore, let this be a lesson for all to save money for
that rainy day.