Street food safety drive

Sanitisation work being carried out at Crab Circle last week. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Caught in a vortex of public disgust triggered by the disclosure of an unsanitary act by a vendor at Crab Circle in the capital city, the Kingston and Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) has partnered with HEART/NSTA Trust to train and certify vendors across the Corporate Area in proper food handling and preparation.

According to Mayor of Kingston Senator Delroy Williams, the upcoming training exercise is expected to commence within another week or two, beginning with the Crab Circle vendors.

“We are pursuing and finalising a partnership to have street food vendors properly trained. The programme [which] the HEART/NSTA Trust has proposed is the small food facility operations which will cover areas that would be critical in terms of food preparation and handling to the public, and they believe that it would enhance the professionalism and make food preparation for the public safe,” Williams said, following a meeting with HEART representatives at his office in downtown Kingston on Monday.

Jamaicans reacted with outrage last week after wide circulation of a video showing a female vendor at Crab Circle defecating inside a stall in an area where food is prepared for public consumption.

This file photo shows a pot of boiled crab seen at the popular streetside eatery Crab Circle. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

Health inspectors and the KSAMC immediately ordered the closure of the popular street-side eatery and carried out sanitisation work. Additionally, the health ministry instructed that portable toilets be installed and that vendors acquire food handler’s permits before the facility can be reopened.

On Monday, Mayor Williams said the five-day-long training programme will also target food vendors in other areas across the municipality where street food is normally prepared.

“There are some areas that evolved over many years — 30, 40, 50 years — and have created a brand for themselves. That would [include] Crab Circle [which] evolved over 20, 30, 40 years, and that area has become quite popular. Then there is the Harbour View roundabout that also evolved over many years; and there is the Red Hills Road jerk area; and there is also Molynes Road. So there are a number of these kinds of operations that exist in the city and would have evolved over many, many years,” he said.

He explained that part of the training component will involve a practical aspect requiring the preparation of meals which will be assessed. The vendors will then be certified once they have successfully completed the assessment.

“Then, from there on, it would have to be just monitoring,” he said.

“We have discussed also with HEART Trust to have a continual programme, so it would not just be that they do this course and that’s it. They would have refresher courses where they will be asked to go in and do these different courses as they go along, which would enhance the operations,” he said.

“So we will begin to impact and to lift the professionalism of these locations across the municipality, and I would say across Jamaica, because these kinds of operations span the entire country and we want them to be successful. We want the persons who are operating these spaces to continue to do good business and to employ and to create employment, but there are some things that must be done on the training side. We believe that training and certification is a key component of the way forward, and impacting behaviour and practice and norms and attitudes,” he added.

Providing an update on Crab Circle, Williams said KSAMC’s Engineering Department is currently looking at the possibility of adding more wash basins and making other improvements in the space, noting that Crab Circle was equipped with wash basins and running water when it was renovated last year.

“We are looking at that as we speak to see what is possible… it is street side vending and with street side vending there are limitations to the kinds of infrastructure that can be put in place. What we did in our last renovation was to lift the area to higher standards and we are now looking to see what further works can be done, what sort of work is possible in the space to see if we can even bring the standards higher there,” he said.

The mayor further noted that the issue of a bathroom facility is something that the KSAMC’s engineers are still looking at, but are seeking to first see what other arrangements can be made.

“There are some of the vendors who would have had their own private arrangement within the Fletcher’s Land community, and so we are looking into all of those and then we’ll make a decision after we have looked into all of [that]. We want to check to see whether or not the private arrangement that the vendors had, if those private arrangements are still functional, are still in place,” Williams said.

The KSAMC, he said, will be speaking with the remaining vendors to see what can be put in place.

As to when Crab Circle will be reopened, the mayor could not provide a definitive answer, but noted that “once training is done and the Public Health Department and ourselves are satisfied that the space is at levels and standards that it can be reopened, then we will take steps for that to happen”.

The stalls at Crab Circle in Kingston were demolished ahead of the visit of then United States President Barack Obama in 2015. New stalls were erected after the visit.

Last year, J Wray & Nephew Limited made a significant investment in rehabilitating the stalls under a memorandum of understanding signed with KSAMC which committed the company to the stall upgrades only.

No sanitary facilities were, however, installed at the location.