7MB vendors due to get licences in October
(CNS): People who have applied to trade on the Seven Mile Public Beach, one of a dwindling number of places where visitors and residents are still able to access the famous beach, can expect to receive their licences to set up shop officially next month. The minister responsible for public lands, Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, told parliament Tuesday that officials were currently processing applications.
Answering a question from Deputy Leader of the Opposition Joey Hew (GTN), she said that the Public Lands Commission had been corresponding with applicants to get all the information needed to issue the licences to finally regularise the growing problem of ad hoc traders.
Vending has been increasingly troublesome on the beach, which is becoming more and more overcrowded, especially on cruise ship days, leading to a chaotic situation. It is hoped that the licensing regime will allow traditional local vendors to supply food and refreshments, souvenirs, watersports services, beach loungers and umbrellas in a more organised fashion and make sure they use the beach huts provided for vendors.
The minister confirmed that the only other public beach where commercial vending will be permitted is Coe Wood Beach in Bodden Town. She said that no traders would be allowed at the West Bay Public Beach after the temporary permission given to some vendors to sell there had expired.
Later in the day, O’Connor-Connolly presented an amendment bill to allow members of the Public Lands Commission to serve longer terms and to mandate that six of the members come from each of the districts, among other changes relating to the composition and terms of appointment of the members. The bill moved through the second reading unopposed and is expected to pass later this week.
Interested applicants can access the application form and policy here or email plc@gov.ky.
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Can Govt please provide me with a swathe of vending huts to be put in the street outside the higglers houses so I can gather a team to sell them encyclopedias and vacuum cleaners each morning before they start their hustle ?
Visitors don’t want to be hassled. What was once Seven Mile Beach is now more like Four Mile Beach, and people who are harassed there will not be coming back. We are killing our own tourism, and the Golden Girl Miss Julie is heading up the effort.
I just can’t. I am so disappointed in our government’s lack of protection of our resources and our beaches. My children ask me questions that I cannot answer, because I don’t know what will be there for them.
I’m a long time visitor. I was on public beach in August. The first person I encountered was a vendor and he asked me if I wanted any drugs. No, sir, I want to lay in on a lounger and swim in the sea, but thank you very much. I was actually pretty shocked. If it was my first visit, I am not sure I would have been comfortable staying on the beach,, but since I know the beauty of CI and it does not depend on that one gentleman, I could overlook that interaction and could carry on and enjoy my day and enjoy my holiday.
The toilets are beyond disgusting.
Piled up unflushed crap, while oir Tourism minister travels first class.
I miss walking on Governors Beach during COVID-19, it was so peaceful at 5-6 am watching the sun rise.
Once again Government instead of confronting the real issue of illegal trading at the Public Beach, it is “back peddling” because it has no guts. The peoples’ beach needs to be a pleasure to visit, without illegal or legal “higglers” taking over.
Mervyn you are so right! Another Trench Town Ghetto. I wish these MLAs would try to pretend that they have a little class. they are taking us down to the dregs.
Mac, Seymour, Kenneth, Jay, Saunders….CLASS..?
Yet they were voted in by their own kind who are increasing in greater numbers than NAU can keep up.
Caymanians just standing there and letting it happen.
Cayman should take a look at Barbados’ public beaches. There are chairs and umbrellas for rent but it’s not mandatory because they don’t take up every square inch of sand and you aren’t jammed in side by side. There is still lots of available beach to bring your own chairs or drop a towel and enjoy. They also have proper flush toilets and a shower area in a solid wood building that is maintained and kept clean by an attendant. There are a variety of food and beverage choices, not sure how that is organized and I may have seen one lady, over the course of the whole day, selling beach coverups. It was a pleasure to go and enjoy the sand and the sea and support the local food vendors.
Kenny should take a trip with his entourage to check it out for sure.
He probably already did with the inaugural CAL flight, killed two birds with one stone, saved some money, ahead of the curve, that kind of thing. 👍
Didn’t learn anything then!
Kenny will use his beach vendors visit as a political photo op of him embracing his voters…aka low life higglers ruining Cayman.
A classic example of squatters exercising and leveraging Govt with what might be the last stand for squatters rights. 😐
https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/08/land-squatters-rights-under-threat/
Referendum on this please
Surely our politicians can see that the public is against this.
Why do they ignore the will of the people like this..?
Perhaps it is time to group together and protest! Sometimes peaceful protest is more powerful than phoning your representative? it can be a great attention grabber and a tool to stamp out unsavory habits that negatively impact our homeland and visitor’s experience. Our visitors along with all of us who reside here do not really need to shop at the public beach. We should not have to facilitate someone’s finances if it means downgrading the visitors experience and dragging Cayman down to the lowest level. It should not be expected that everyone on here and wants to make a living should be allowed to do so at the peril of our Beloved Cayman Islands and the rest of us. Tourism Department could pay someone to set up a few kiosk offering a cool lemonade, or tamarind drink and that should be enough. For anything else there is the supermarkets and restaurants.
Not until we have our cruise port referendum.
Convicted criminals and friends don’t care about the public. The voters need to change the elections law insisting on a clean police clearance certificate for anyone hoping to run for high office, handling money, or developing policy. Voters have to do it themselves.
Totally agree that there is no place for beach vendors or higglers or however they are defined.
I am also wholly opposed to beach front condos and hotels being allowed to clutter the shoreline down to the sea with deckchairs and cabanas. Even the Greeks are now fighting this Mediterranean type behaviour.
get rid of them now. disgusting practice first allowed by ppm.
yet another epic fail for wayne and no-plan-pact
Except it was Mac who first issued letters of approval to some, they still wave them at you on occasion if you’re lucky.
All the sh*t comes back to Mac
There should be a law that no vendors are allowed on the beach at all.
Government “back peddling” at it’s worst! The Public Beach is the last sanctuary for the people to go to enjoy the sea with out being hassled by “higglers”. Go to the Craft Market if you want souvenirs.
craft market….that crappy tent behind Dairy Queen that is in shambles and only open when the cattle boats are in….and is given over 100k to the Tourism board to manage…manage what. jobs for unemployables
Licensing will do nothing to improve the situation at public beach without full time enforcement of the rules, none of which have been communicated to the vendors or the public. I can’t wait to see how you store 1000 decrepit beach chairs in one of those huts.
Licensing will only mean it is legal to take over the beach and make it a dumping ground for the imported riff-raff. We shouldn’t expect anything else from most of these MLAs but it is disappointing that Juliana seems to have dropped all her common sense and respect for our Beloved Isles Cayman! Do they care about any of our values and principles that kept us strong and together back when times were hard and we believed in the adage that “cleanliness was next to Godliness” my heart breaks for this Rock” I still call home.
This nefarious operation to deny Caymanians access to their beach has been implemented slowly over the years, bit by bit.
Most Caymanians are in fact prisoners on their own island, enslaved by a system they did not vote for.
Politics is open to gross Lodge manipulation.
Caymanians denying Caymanians. Pooped on by your own. Ex-pats get a bly with with fiasco.
They did not vote for it – They SOLD IT!
The right to peaceable enjoyment of the beach exists independent and separate from ownership. Who sold it to who is irrelevant.
Nobody wants these vendors. Just shut this trash down.
Saunders Mac Seymour and Kenneth want the vendors, for their votes.
They run to their MP …and No matter the damage to Cayman or it’s tourism product, they want votes to keep their snouts in the trough.
Make SMB free of vendors.
Make Cayman free of politicians.
Fine specimen in the photo
peak male physique
No! Nein! Nyet! Non!
Stop facilitating the destruction of my country!
Brilliant. It’s the beginning of the end of The Cayman Islands.
They can’t fix the absolutely endemic abuse of work permits but at least they can give permission to the people to basically spoil one of our greatest products.
Ask yourself this and I’m serious as this is problem world wide, ask yourself how many of the people WORKING those vendor roles harassing and ruining our customers vacation will be people on real work permits for that specific role? Zero.
This is degusting. Lets see how long it takes our amateur immigration and border control teams to even bother asking for the correct f*** paperwork from some random illegal.
“but it’s ok, he has a trade and business license”
“Sir, that’s a woman and she’s Filipino. The license is for a Jamaican Ebanks from East End, shouldn’t you confirm their permit?”
CBC Office: skips off into the f**** sunset to drive his company Tahoe or Hilux to Meringue Town, pat himself on the back for a job well done for once in about 25 years whilst “living with his Caymanian Wife in a stable household”.
What an absolute disgusting mess we are in.
I’d like to say Direct Rule would help but it wouldn’t. The motherland doesn’t care what we do to ourselves as long we they can keep the money stashed here.
They will care eventually though. Give it 20 years when our Islands turn into Jamaica or Haiti and they will care! They won’t address it as that is imperialism but they will definitely begin shifting all our golden geese to other pastures to leave us to our new found third world hellhole of an Island.
RIP Cayman
No beach vendor ban, no vote.
Make them remove the chairs from public lands at the end of each day. Also, remove the bbq shopping cart that looks like a homeless encampment.
Now there will be no space left for normal people to enjoy the beach.
Disgustingly vile higgling has no place on any of our beaches. Or roadsides for that matter.