OJ Elrington Warns CitCo Over Jun’s Meat Shop Closure

The dispute between longtime Finnegan Market vendor Aaron Castillo and the Belize City Council is now headed for a legal challenge. After the council enforced a stop order and locked Castillo out of his two businesses, Jun’s Meat Shop and Supermarket, his attorney, Orson Elrington, formally put the council on notice. Elrington is challenging the legality of the closure, arguing that the council’s action has caused significant financial losses for his client. The attorney is now seeking to have the matter addressed as Castillo fights to regain access to his businesses.

 

Orson “OJ” Elrington, Attorney-at-law

“Today we issued a pre-litigation letter  we issued a pre-litigation letter to the Belize City Council as a result of the illegal actions of the Belize City Council. As you would know, Shane sometime in this week, the city council purportedly effected an ejection of my client. Now, every Belizean knows that for you to eject any tenant, you must first get an order of the court.  That is fundamental. That’s not legal gymnastics. That’s not a complex concept whatsoever. The matter insofar as the stop order, which purports that my clients are not compliant with the liquor license – trade sorry, with their trade license is absolutely false. They have a order, a consent order. For those who may not know what is a consent order, that means it’s when both parties agree to certain conditions. So whosoever went to represent the city council at the court agreed with our clients that if they made payments on a certain time time schedule that they would be provided with their license. They have complied with that,and therefore are fully compliant with the court’s orders. Now, additionally, my clients have instructed me that they’re not even sure who has the keys and they have meat and they have other things which are perishable. So only when they get back their property we would know what is the quantum of their losses so that then we can, the City Council can address losses for which they would have already suffered.”

 

The Belize City Council says Jun’s Meat Shop is one of thirty-nine stop orders that have been enforced for non-compliance of business owners.

 

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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