'Quick sale, no profit'
Published:Thursday | May 27, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
Market vendors started to return to downtown Kingston yesterday, three days after they hastily packed up their goods and fled the area, which was ground zero for a massive police-military operation to capture alleged drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
With the main vending zone, Coronation Market, still a no-go area, the market vendors congregated at the top of the also-popular Heywood Street, almost in the heart of Parade, trying to attract buyers who were few and far between.
"Quick sale, no profit!" shouted one vendor. "Anything on the cart for $20!" shouted another, as they tried to entice a handful of shoppers - who seemed more interested in looking than buying - with rock-bottom prices.
"Mi lose nuff money," said a vendor, as she pointed to a pile of rotting tomatoes, peppers and pawpaws that she was forced to discard.
Discarded food
"From Sunday, me no sell nutten and me just have to throw way everything that spoil. It is a whole heap o' thing me have to dash 'way since yesterday," a man said.
"Onion over here, pepper over here, come buy out the cart!" shouted a woman who was selling Scotch bonnet peppers for $20, instead of the $50 a similar quantity sold for last Saturday.
Other vendors also reduced their prices as they tried to sell their produce and go home.
"Me was selling the pawpaw fi $50 a pound, but now me have fi sell dem fi $30 a pound before dem spoil," another vendor told The Gleaner.
She noted that several stalls had been destroyed and sections of the market burnt, but argued that these would be minor setbacks for vendors used to a difficult life.
According to her, most of her colleagues were looking at the good news that gunfire had been significantly reduced by yesterday morning, leaving them with hope that downtown Kingston would be back to normal by Friday when the traditional shopping weekend begins.
The market district, like the rest of downtown, has been under lockdown since Sunday when thugs loyal to Coke started to block most of the major roadways in the area.
The situation intensified on Monday when the security forces entered nearby Tivoli Gardens.