Tensions at the Michael Finnegan Market

Small farmers showed up to sell their produce at the Michael Finnegan Market in Belize City this morning and were turned away. The scene quickly turned tense between the vendors and authorities present.

The Belize City Council recently stepped up enforcement of a long-standing rule separating wholesale and retail market days. The enforcement restricts retail vendors to Saturdays only. Tuesdays and Fridays are reserved for wholesalers.

The rules are not new, but stricter enforcement over the past weeks brought tensions to a head.

Farmer Placido Cunil, who has been selling at the market since the pandemic, said the restriction makes it impossible for him to do business. “How am I going to sell my product? If they don’t allow me to go in the market”, he said. “We are hungry. Where is our rights?”

Cunil also accused the wholesalers of selling retail inside the market on the same day small vendors were being blocked from the street. “So this is not fair for us,” he said.

However, Market Manager Delroy Herrera pointed at the distinction between the street market and vendors operating inside the market building. “The vendors inside retail from Sunday to Sunday,” he said, adding that the street perimeter operates under the designated day rules, such as today.

Herrera confirmed that four retail vendors were turned away today and that enforcement would continue into Friday as part of the “education process for the retailers.” He also said the council would be present on Saturday to stop wholesalers from selling on the retailers’ designated day.

Not all vendors were unhappy. One wholesale farmer told News 5: “In all honesty, today has been one of the best days I’ve had in a long time without the competition of retailing and prices going up and down and fluctuating, we can come in and sell our stuff at the price that we can see is best for ourselves.”

The council says vendors who want to switch from the retail to the wholesale list can do so by completing a simple registration process requiring proper documentation.