Uncertainty surrounds fresh legal battle over vending outside Yhip’s Bakery

Last Updated on Monday, 29 December 2025, 15:19 by Writer

As City Mayor Alfred Mentore and his lawyers on Monday prepared to attempt to seek change in a High Court order to stop or delay the removal of vendors from outside Yhip’s Bakery on Robb and Alexander streets, Georgetown, Town Clerk Candace Nelson believes the chief citizen is on weak grounds.

City workers on Sunday aborted an operation to remove the vendors after the Mayor held a meeting with them on Saturday.

With the High Court order already made and the Town Clerk and other city administration officials risked being penalised for contempt of court by failing to move the vendors, the Mayor now appeared set to rely on a February 27, 2025 letter by Attorney-at-law Dexter Smartt, on behalf of Troy Yhip, “a beneficiary of the transported owner” of the bakery to request that the vendors be given six months more to relocate their operations.

“Our client still pleads on behalf of the vendors who are to be removed, that they may not be removed or given at least six months to find a suitable area to move to,” Mr Smartt told the Town Clerk on behalf of his client.

He says that approach will allow the vendors — “persons of little means who ply their trade to feed their families” — to notify the customers of their new location.

The lawyer says he has explained to Mr Yhip the laws surrounding vending on roads and pavements as well as the High Court order in this matter and its effect as well as the fact that not all persons can benefit from leniency.

The lawyer also states that Mr Yhip “was the one who gave permission to the vendors to sell outside his business place, especially since no one else lived there or were involved in the business.”

Mr Smartt also told the Town Clerk that his client and “some” other beneficiaries of the property were unaware of the court proceedings and could not intervene in the matter.

That matter concluded with a High Court order for the vendors to remove from outside the property and they were notified, the lawyer said.

The mayor also says that the woman, Suzanne Pemberton, who obtained the court order for the removal of the vendors, enjoys minority rights to the property on Robb and Alexander streets.

Town Clerk’s Position

However, Town Clerk Nelson told Demerara Waves Online News that the lawyer’s letter “was not received during the hearing and I could not consider this request since an (order of mandamus) was already issued.”

According to the court order seen by Demerara Waves Online News, the order was granted on November 19, 2024 and served on December 5, 2024.

Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry states in the order that “there was no appearance by or for” the town clerk or the city engineer.

She said Mayor Mentore first brought that letter to her attention with the promise that the order of mandamus would be challenged in the courts. “That is yet to be done,” she added.

Representing Mr Albert Yhip was Ms Pemberton, who applied for the order to remove the vendors and has an irrevocable general power-of-attorney dated December 3, 2018.

Contempt proceedings

Mr Yhip, represented by Ms Pemberton, has since applied for a contempt order from Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln on November 25, 2025 against the town clerk and City Engineer Colvern Venture, directing that those city hall officials “stand committed to prison” for “wilful disobedience” of the order of mandamus.

That application states, among other things, that Ms Pemberton kept following up with the mayor and town clerk about when they would remove the persons from outside the property.

Ms Pemberton said that some time in January 2025, Mayor Mentore told her that “the court order had no date so they can move the vendors when they wish.”

After Ms Pemberton’s dispatched a lawyer’s letter to the town clerk as a result of their “lacklustre attitude” warning that contempt proceedings would have been brought against them 10 days from January 23, 2025, the town clerk replied stating that the vendors would have been removed in a month, but that was not done.

This application comes up for hearing on January 9, 2026.