… M&CC clamps down on Stabroek Market cigarette vendors
As Government prepares to table the Tobacco Control Bill of 2017 in Parliament on Thursday, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has already started making moves to remove cigarette vendors from the Stabroek Market Square.
The M&CC, through its City Constabulary Department, on Thursday informed cigarette vendors at the market square that they would no longer be able to vend
A cigarette vendor at Stabroek Market
in the area; rather if they prefer to vend they must do so on moving carts.
Vendor, Eros Thompson told Guyana Times that he has been vending in the area for approximately 17 years and noted the removal of his vending stand interferes with his livelihood. He added that he was told that he would be unable to vend in the area since the orders came from President David Granger.
“They tell we that we must register when we out here, we go and we register, we get ID and when is time to get a spot for we they can’t find it. One of the officers give we a lil piece of spot to sell and now they turn and tell you that you can’t sell out here and that order come from the President that no vending around the market square,” the angry man related.
He questioned the M&CC’s plans for the vendors since they cannot find a stable spot for the vendors. The vendor alluded to the fact that they were moved from the area last year and had to return to the same spot only to be removed, with nowhere to go, again.
Thompson said the livelihood of approximately 12 vendors are affected by the M&CC move and called for it to be revisited.
On Thursday, Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence will read for the first time, the Tobacco Control Bill of 2017 in Parliament. The Bill provides for the adoption and implementation of the tobacco control policies in accordance with the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC).
The WHO-FCTC is the first international public health treaty negotiated under WHO auspices and was developed in the recognition that a global strategy was needed to confront a global epidemic that countries cannot address through domestic legislation alone.
The treaty requires countries to comprehensively ban advertising on tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion within a five-year period; health warning to cover at least 30 per cent of packaging within three years; increased taxes on tobacco and a ban on public smoking.
The Bill also seeks to regulate the tobacco industry; its products and sales; to protect public health policies from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry and to provide for other related matters.
