City admin removes vendors outside Yhip’s Bakery, Robb Street’s next

Last Updated on Sunday, 4 January 2026, 14:30 by Writer

Georgetown’s city administration on Sunday finally complied with a High Court order and removed vendors outside Yhip’s Bakery on Robb and Alexander streets, sparking fresh demands for proper accommodation for all Robb Street vendors to avoid unfair competition.

City Mayor Alfred Mentore said plans were in the pipeline to relocate the vendors on Merriman’s Mall between Orange Walk and Cummings Street.

He bemoaned the decision by the Town Clerk Candace Nelson and City Engineer Colvern Venture to dismantle and discard the stalls in keeping with the original High Court order, even as the duo had challenged the contempt of court application.

Mr Mentore told Demerara Waves Online News that the vendors were displaced, although he had formally asked the Town Clerk to call an emergency statutory meeting on Monday, January 5 to discuss vending generally and halt plans to remove those from outside Yhip’s Bakery.

“As such, any action to remove vendors plying their trade on the immediate periphery should be suspended until the conclusion of the emergency Statutory Meeting,” he said in the request dated January 3.

But he believed that there was a hidden hand to move in on the vendors. “It’s clear instructions coming from higher up but claiming it’s done in the name of the Mayor and City Council,” he said.

He said he had hoped to appear in court on January 9 and also formally write the judge, giving her a commitment that the vendors would be relocated to the Merriman’s Mall.

Vendors dislocated from outside the now shuttered bakery complained bitterly to leader of We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) Azruddin Mohamed and senior party member Tabita Sarabo-Halley.

They said the Mayor and City Council should have first found an alternative location for them prior to breaking down their stalls.

One of the vendors said she was informed that City Hall planned to relocate them to the Merriman’s Mall but when she went there the conditions were unsatisfactory.

“There is no facility – water, lights – and there are junkies out there that you cannot be comfortable. For example, I made three tables and took it over where they said we have to go there. When I went back two days after, there was no table there. The shed is pure holes,” she told Mr Mohamed.

Another of the 14 mostly female vendors, a number of whom journey from Mahaica, Cane Grove and Bath Settlement with bus loads of fruits and vegetables, to sell in the city, said all of the vendors on Robb Street should be removed to ensure fair access to shoppers.

“It’s very much unfair. If you’re going to move a few of us, move everybody and put everybody at one specific (spot) so that we will have a better market,” she said.

The vendor questioned how come Mon Repos, Parika, Leonora and Lusignan markets could have been built and nothing had been done to Stabroek and Bourda markets. “We are dogs out here? We are not dogs out here. We are human and we need help because where they expect us to go?” she said.

Her colleague vowed to remain out there and “we’re going to take lock up and we’re going to pay the fine everyday” if the other vendors are also not removed.

Mr Mohamed heaped criticism on an “uncaring” government for doing little to improve the deplorable conditions of the “iconic” Stabroek and Bourda markets, despite the fact that Guyana was earning millions of dollars annually from oil revenues.

Asked what he planned to do to address the plight of the vendors who were removed from outside the bakery, he called for all of the vendors on that stretch of Robb Street between Alexander and Bourda streets to placed on the Merriman’s Mall.

Mayor Mentore said the draft 2026 city budget provides for the dismantling and replacement of existing sheds on the Merriman’s Mall between Orange Walk and Cummings Street and the construction of sanitary facilities.

He said the plan is to accommodate the estimated 50 street vendors there and firmly prohibit vending on Robb Street.

“That is the whole idea to not create unfair competition for anyone so that everybody will have a chance to sell,” he said.

He said he could in the early part of the year find monies to do the works even before budget approval.

WIN’s Ms Sarabo-Halley said the city administration and central government had two years since the holder of the power-of-attorney or the Yhip’s property first sought a court order for the vendors’ removal to find a place to relocate all the vendors.

“If you move 10 or 13 vendors from here, then who is going to go somewhere else just to buy from 13 when the rest of the persons are here. It will not happen,” she said. She lamented that many of the vendors, who are parents, were now left to with no other place to ply their trade.