By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Vendors at the Bay Street Straw Market are blaming the economy, stall placement and poor market conditions where they are “packed like sardines” for reduced sales and incomes.

Rebecca Small, the Straw Businesspersons Society president, said she has long advocated for the introduction of a shift system in the belief this would improve vendors’ chances of making a profit and overcome assertions that some members are incurring losses because of where their booths are located within the market.

She called for such a system to be reinstated following its use during the COVID-19 pandemic. This would divide straw vendors into separate groups, group A and group B, which work alternate shifts. Vendors would work three days on some weeks, and four days in others.

But, while some vendors back the the idea, Carolyn Wright said such a system will bring challenges, including having to still pay a full week’s rent regardless of how many days are worked as well as possibly working a shift when no cruise ships are docked.

“During the pandemic, there was a rotation where we were divided into A and B, and it was like, say for instance, both of my neighbours on my right and on my left, they were off when I was on,” Ms Wright said.

“The Government did not agree with it. The reason why is because you were only working three or four days out of the week, and you had to still pay the entire full week’s rent. That was the problem there.

“The cruise ship comes in, say Monday is a good day. And then it will fall on the time, like, if you have to work in that rotating shift, on the day when you are supposed to work it’s no ship in the harbour, and then the following day when the other people work is five or six ships in the harbour.”

While Ms Small said 20 percent of Straw Market vendors are doing fairly well, the other 80 percent are struggling to make a profit. Celestine Eneas, president of the Straw Vendors Advancement Association, said regardless of stall placement tourists are not spending as much money as they used to.

“The market is always going to be the market,” Ms Eneas added. “And right now, you see what going on in America? These people buying tickets to come but they ain’t spending no money. I have a prime stall in the market; what they say is [a] prime stall, but ain’t no money spending.

“And then the thing about it is, some of these people that talking, they just reach in the market. They just reach in the market and plenty of them leave their job because they hear money was being made in the market. And so they come now and they expect to reap benefits when you ain’t sow nothing.

“I had to struggle. I been in the market from I was four. I had to struggle to get where I is now. It wasn’t always easy like that. I had a $200 mortgage what I couldn’t pay - $200. Could you imagine? I ain’t call the press. I deal with my situation. I just feel like people feel like it should happen overnight. It ain’t going to happen overnight. You got to struggle.”

Ms Wright said she is “privileged” to have obtained a spot facing Bay Street, adding that the current placement of vendors was based on seniority.

“They had the people who supposed to be the leaders, like the presidents and all who are recognised as leaders in their association, they were able to choose their stalls,” Ms Wright added. “And other people who was fortunate to get on those ends were people like, if you had somebody working in the ministry at the time, or things like that. That’s how people end up on the end stalls.

“And now they fix it where, if a person die on any stall, like if I die, the stall could go to one of my children. Some time ago, they had vacant stalls. Old vendors who been there a long time ago, and they are in the middle or not in a privileged stall, they could ask for a transfer. But that all gone out of the window. They too favouritism.”

Elizabeth “Pinky” Wilson-Robinson, owner of Pinky’s Unique World of Straw, said while her stall is located deeper inside the Straw Market she advertises her business online and reaches out to the cruise lines who would then direct passengers to her. She did, however, accuse vendors on the outskirts of “crossing me to make a dollar” and “blocking” tourists.

“I’m on TripAdvisor,” Ms Robinson added. “I’m on the Google Maps - Pinky’s Unique World Store. You can do it. I’m on The Bahamas trip thing, what they have online, where when persons shopping look for this and I put it in the Straw Market. It doesn’t matter if they come and stop to other vendors, but I just want the people come there and look around.

“Now, the ones on the outside, yeah, they are blocking them from coming in. I sell authentic work only. They’re selling foreign work. And I’m not mad with nobody if that’s what they choose to sell. That’s their choice. My choice is authentic. If I make it, I don’t want to sell it.

“So when I do that, and you selling those knock-offs out there, and you’re telling them: ‘Oh, this the real thing,’ now I have a problem with that. Don’t stop them from coming in. Don’t block them. Don’t tell them there’s nobody else in the back there and crossing me to make a dollar.”

Ms Robinson suggested the introduction of “an authentic market” to reduce competition among vendors selling authentic and other products. “Why not make an authentic market divider? The same way you had wood carvers divided; they had the wood carvers in the back,” she argued.

“Put us in an area and call it ‘Authentic Market’. Whereas we don’t have to struggle with everybody else who wants to sell sweatshirts, t-shirts, knock-off bags. We don’t have to hustle up with them. If I sell a souveniur, I made that. I do clay stuff and all. My daughters, they are creative people. We’re a family of creating things. If we ain’t make it, we ain’t selling it.

“I’m not cutting no roads. I ain’t cleaning no sidewalk, and I ain’t building no building. So why the hell you calling me Ministry of Works. And that has been like that from my grandmother was in the market and I’m the fourth generation of straw vendors. I will appreciate us under the Ministry of Tourism. That will give us our proper recognition. That will make us be sensible out there.”

Another vendor, Joyann Bethel, added that the Straw Market could use some advertisement. “They need to really advertise the Straw Market much better because numerous times folks, I would say, they have wandered off and end up in here by accident - those who are first timers. And those who know of the market, they come back. But it’s not really being promoted much,” she added.

The vendors agreed that the working conditions and overall appearance of the Bay Street Straw Market also impacts the amount of tourists willing to stop and shop. They complained of the heat trapped in the market due to the absence of a cooling system and a lack of ventilation.

Ms Eneas said: “When the tourists come in, they don’t want to stay inside because the market is too hot.” However, she added that she understood money has been allocated in the Budget “to get some cooling in there.”

“I hope that it don’t have to go to tender where it will take another ten years,” Ms Eneas added, “because some of us will die because the market is too hot. And I really and truly appreciate them for doing that, but [if] they could speed it up, it’ll be really appreciated.”

The restroom is another concern. Vendors said for a time they had to wash their hands using bottles of water. They added that they often have to call custodians to replace toiletries, and the lavatories are generally left filthy with unpleasant odours.

“Because of me being right there on Bay Street, many tourists walk right up to me and say: ‘Can you tell me where there’s a public restroom,” Ms Wright said. “And I say ‘all the way to the back of the market, to the back’. And let me tell you who all use that. If you ever stand in the back there, you’ll find the taxi drivers will use it. You’ll find everybody use it. Everybody who passed in the back there, use the toilet.

“You have to call them [custodians] and tell them the bathroom needs to clean or the tissue is out. You have thousands of tourists and people walking in and out that bathroom every minute. It looks so bad. Let me tell you something. You should see when they clean the mop bucket sitting right there. Then if the toilet out of order, it have a big garbage bag cover... one of the doors break down. The place look terrible.

“The people who were hired to bring in the thing for the sanitary napkins, the female sanitary napkins, they come in like, I believe, once a week. You could imagine, once a week for thousands of people, young women who have a period. You know how blood smell? You could imagine how that is when they come to... and sometime it’s overfull. I just is walk in and walk out. I don’t have nothing to say because you get to a point where you just don’t be heard.”

Ms Wright said the Straw Market set-up also poses a problem, adding: “If you ever come inside that market, you will see the stalls that [are] in the centre. They have a door. The ones who on the left hand side have a door and the door swings open.

“Now they supposed to be within that door. Now they are outside the door, and they put their chair... Let me tell you something, If you ever come to that market on a day when six ships in the harbour, you could hardly walk. You could hardly walk,” she added.

“When the market first opened, when it was first built, they had these stalls... what was supposed to be demonstration booths. So people could’ve come and see how the straw is made, people plaiting and people stitching and making different stuff. Well, that went right out the window. Next minute they had people selling food.

“As the Government change, different things happen. If the FNM come in, they do one thing. When the PLP come in, they do another thing. So right now they gone and take them same booths, and they gave people the booths. Those booths had a little porch and then they had made some benches for the tourists to sit down. Like, you know, when women shopping, men will want to sit,” Ms Wright added.

“Well, then the straw vendors were sitting all over the bench, and they couldn’t get them to move. And when they ain’t sitting on the bench, they put work on display things on the benches. So people move all the benches, and they put the vendors in the booths. And now those vendors come off the porch, and in the centre. They all set right up, and the place is a mess.”

Ms Robinson said vendors are “packed like sardines” and some should be moved out.

“Move some of us out. Move some out of there,” she added. “Instead of having that one booth, that little one tiny booth, let us have two booths and a space for another person. Two booths, one person. When they pile up like that, you can’t see nobody. We’re too piled up. We look like sardines in a can.”