Fire brings Christmas pain to market vendors
Published:Monday | December 12, 2022 | 5:21 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Hours after firefighters extinguished the blaze that flattened at least 30 stalls on the margins of Coronation Market on Sunday morning, breast cancer survivor Wyhonnie Myles Brooks could not help but weep as she sifted through the ashes of her stock.
Myles Brooks, 50, had only returned to sell in the downtown Kingston market about a month ago after completing chemotherapy treatment in June. She yielded to the urgings of colleague vendors – some of whom she has sold alongside for 20 years – in order not to be bogged down by depression at home.
As a bleak Christmas looms, she now wonders whether the return to capitalise on the shopping season was worth it after all.
“It’s not really a good feeling. This time it’s different, because I’m just starting back after a period of sickness and chemotherapy,” she murmured to The Gleaner while holding a bag of slippers that was saved from destruction.
Myles Brooks could not estimate the value of her losses, but she said that peas, onions, garlic, and slippers all went up in flames. The fire started about 3 a.m.
This is the second time Myles Brooks is suffering from a blaze at the market. There were previous fires in that section of the market district in June 2010, May 2014, and March 2022.
Shelly-Ann Briscoe, another vendor, lamented that much of her stock was not purchased on Friday as many shoppers who would have flocked the market were consumed with watching World Cup football.
“Nobody never come a market come buy nothing, and the whole a mi load dem pack up in deh. Ten bag o’ Irish [potatoes], onions, beetroot, pumpkin! Mi lose over $400,000 worth a goods inna mi shop. TV, fan, bed, everything mi lose out inna my shop, and a 27 years mi deh yah so a Coronation Market,” Briscoe told The Gleaner.
Like Myles Brooks, this is the second time Briscoe has sustained major losses from a fire at the same location.
Unlike Myles Brooks and Briscoe, the entire stock, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sherryl Williams, was spared, but electrical wires were burnt outside her stall. She is relieved the fire did not breach the door to her stall.
“A just di mercy a God! Mi just haffi lift up mi hand and give God di praise! See it deh. Who could it be but Jesus? Mi feel it fi mi sister dem, because di whole a we a one,” Williams told The Gleaner, before opening her stall on Sunday morning to view her items which were spared.
“And di amount a things weh mi have pack up! [But] di whole a we a one, so mi must affi feel bad!” she said.
Williams sympathises with Myles Brooks because she was one of the persons who encouraged her to return to the market and not remain at her house.
Two cookshops were located at the centre of the fire. One of those operators reportedly lost around J$2 million in merchandise, appliances and stock, some of which were on consignment for Christmas.
The vendors told The Gleaner that one of the cookshop operators received 600lb of chicken on Saturday.
Coronation Market is controlled by the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC).
When contacted on Sunday, Robert Hill, chief executive officer of the KSAMC, told The Gleaner that Kingston Mayor Delroy Williams would issue a press statement. No correspondence was issued up to press time.