Vendors are once again out in their numbers on the streets of downtown Kingston, conducting feverish business.
Many say they are on the streets because it is cheaper to remain there than to pay different sets of thugs who had turned up at the arcades, collecting "taxes".
In between quick glances around to summon the nearest passer-by, one vendor said that she had no intention of leaving the streets to sell where she did not feel safe. "Come off and go where?" she asked. "I go over there on Monday and is three set of man come to me sey is come them come fi collect. Nuh care wha you hear say, a ranking rule downtown, you haffi pay," she said.
Stony-faced and quick-tongued, the vendors are resolute that they will not be convinced to take up lodgings in the areas that are still unsafe and end up costing them more than they would make in sales each day. They said too that the streets offered less of a health risk, especially in some areas.
One clothes vendor said that she had left from Beckford Street to the new paved area across from Redemption market to co-operate with the authorities, but had now come back to the sidewalk because she felt the conditions there was ruining her health.
In the Oxford Mall, while the work on the inside was complete except for final touches to the bathroom, the area was stark with few vendors and even fewer shoppers.
.almost no buyers.
It was more of a play ground for children and traffic-free short-cut to Coronation Market on the other side.
Meanwhile merchants and shop owners told of periodic reprieves as groups of policemen and a unit from the Mobile Reserve observed the situation from vantage points along Beckford Street, and toured the streets during which some vendors would move along.
One shop owner on Orange Street said that while the situation was never as bad as it had been for merchants in other areas, it had improved somewhat. "It look as if they are making an effort they will move up and try not to crowd up the store fronts too much."
Last Monday merchants were forced to pull their shutters down in most of downtown's commercial district. Security forces led by Senior Superintendent of police Hector Whyte, in charge of the Mobile Reserves, were in place at the restricted areas to prevent vendors from unloading goods.
