Corozal Vendor Calls in to Voice Frustration Over Market Enforcement

One retail vendor called into News Five this afternoon to share her experience. Hilda Mena and her husband have been selling at the Michael Finnegan Market for over four years, and today was the first time they were turned away. While she is willing to work within the rules, she wants decision-makers to understand what this enforcement means for the small farmer who travels hours just to make a sale.

 

On the Phone: Hilda Mena, Retail Vendor

“We are not taking a truck, a big truck. We take a little bit of what we have. Now, in the market, we cannot sell wholesale because nobody wants to buy from Belizeans. They only want to buy from Mennonites. So what we do now is that we have to sell some wholesale and some retail for us to balance our monthly bills. Now, closing us on Tuesdays and Fridays brings us to a bigger concern. What are we going to do with our bills? And that is not only my concern, ma’am. That’s the concern of many people that travel to Belize.”

 

Reporter

“Would you consider switching to being registered on the wholesale list?”

 

Hilda Mena
“Ma’am, I wouldn’t have a problem if that would help me. But I have been years working, going to sell at the market. And in the market, I only have one person that buys wholesale because everybody buys from the Mennonite. So if I register in a wholesale section, I am going to stay with all my products because only one person buys wholesale. What am I going to do with the rest? He has to be very, very how to say, he has to consider the people that come from out because we don’t travel every day. But the Mennonites do. Because of them, we are getting affected. And we only travel three times a week with a little bit amount of things just to survive. I would specify only to survive because we are not taking a thousand pounds of cilantro or 50 bags of potatoes.”

 

Mena says if Saturdays are going to remain the official retail day, then she believes permanent stallholders who already sell throughout the week should not be allowed to compete with traveling retail vendors on that day.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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