So yesterday's two stories in The Gleaner which engaged the reader more closely with the ubiquitous 'jelly man' came from polarised perspectives. The story, 'Patrons go nuts for Bigga', speaks glowingly of a St Elizabeth roadside vendor's industry and excellent interpersonal skills and musician and actor Billy 'Mystic' Wilmot's letter to the editor rued the "disenfranchisement" of another 'jelly man' on the Port Royal Road, who has been removed from his place of roadside business by the erection of an extensive guard rail.
The two situations are not, of course, equal in the strictest sense and we are sure that there are individual circumstances which have determined the disparate fates of the two 'jelly men'. That, however, does not change the fact that, especially in these recessionary times, how the state and its agents engage with the roadside jelly man and other persons on the lower rungs of the economic ladder who turn to streetside selling could be a determining factor in social stability.
This may not be for the nation as a whole, and we are certainly not suggesting that maintaining a hard-line stance against ramshackle streetside vending is going to lead to mobs running amok in the streets.
A more pragmatic approach
However, with the ripple effect of job losses tipping those who are on the thinnest margins of survival over the edge, a day's sales may mean for more and more people the difference between intolerable hunger and sustenance to face another day.
Successive governments have taken a Jekyll and Hyde approach to streetside vending - tolerant one moment and aggressively removing them the next, especially close to Christmas time, when they are often required to operate within clearly defined vending zones.
We suggest that over the coming months, the municipal authorities take a pragmatic look at the application of the policy towards streetside vending, especially in cases (as Wilmot writes) where the person does not make a rubbish heap of his or her immediate surroundings. And there is another factor.
Wilmot states that the jelly man who has been moved on from the Palisadoes Road was a favourite of visitors to the island. In some tourist set-ups, it is fashionable to recreate an aspect of Jamaican life not usually found inside the hotel's gates by importing a peanut vendor as well as a cane and jelly vendor.
It is ironic that in his accustomed environment, a jelly man should be censured for plying his trade while elsewhere, he is celebrated as part of the authentic Jamaican experience.
Wilmot made a useful suggestion that should be embraced, that is for the municipal authorities to allow the entrepreneurial sprit of the Palisadoes Road jelly man to thrive, while maintaining a sense of environmental order. It can be a win-win situation for all parties concerned.
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