Market vendor caught in unsanitary act to face charges
Published:Wednesday | September 4, 2024 | 12:10 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
A female vendor, who was captured on video urinating in a container and then pouring the contents into a bottle at the Charles Gordon Market (CGM) in Montego Bay, will face prosecution.
Dr Francine Phillips-Kelly, the medical officer of health for St James, made the revelation during a press conference on Tuesday.
“This vendor will not be able to continue as is, because based on investigations, she would have breached our food handling regulations in several areas,” Phillips-Kelly said. “She will not be allowed to continue, and action will be taken … because of the breaches we have found. She is liable for prosecution.”
The vendor, whose name was not disclosed at the press conference, was caught in the act by a motorist. The footage subsequently went viral on social media.
This incident comes nearly a year after a crab vendor Alice Waugh was captured on video relieving her bowels in a container at her stall at the popular Crab Circle street food hub in Kingston.
That video triggered a lockdown of the Heroes Circle-based facility and the erection of new stalls and a restroom at the location.
Waugh, who was roundly condemned in several quarters, subsequently pleaded guilty to breaching the Public Health Act and was fined $250,000 in the St Andrew Parish Court in July this year.
STRICT POLICY
Arising from the Montego Bay incident, Montego Bay Mayor Richard Vernon said that going forward, vendors will not be given licences if they refuse to obey the St James Health Services’ regulations or operate outside of designated vending zones such as the CGM.
Vernon said the St James Municipal Corporation would be taking stricter measures to ensure that vendors operate in accordance with the Safe Food Programme, which was launched in 2023.
“We are going to check the numbers again, just to be sure of the population we are targeting, to ensure that each vendor there has a food handler’s permit and that each vendor selling within the facility is licensed to do so,” the mayor said.
He also stressed that vendors who are licensed to sell within the CGM should not ply their trade outside the market’s boundaries.
It is understood that the vendor in hot water has been operating in the area for over a decade and last renewed her now-expired food handler’s permit in 2021.