Chicken vendor plucks Mayor Rose

By Selwyn Carr

THE Mayoress, Rose Janneiere, and the Arima Borough Council have lost round one in their bid to remove a thriving chicken business from operating inside the market!

Justice Madame Sealey granted an injunction holding back the corporation from demolishing the structure put up by Lennard Baptiste, brother of calypsonian, Lord Brigo.

The corporation had threatened to demolish the man's business.

Attorney Albert Edwards, filed suit on behalf of Baptiste against the corporation.

A letter to Baptiste, signed by the borough’s Town Clerk, Michael Woods, noted that he “could not be allowed to operate from a health aspect.”

This was after a $50-a-month licence was granted to Baptiste to operate his plucking and gutting business.

Before that, the borough's health authority had given Baptiste the green light to operate as he had agreed to abide by rules laid down.

By that time, Baptiste said, he had already spent some $120,000 in putting up the structure and other amenities.

He told Friday Mirror that the long and short of the issue was that a relative of a top official of the corporation was running a similar business nearby.

The relative was granted a licence to operate outside the market a mere 100 feet away from Baptiste’s business.

“You see, my business is in direct competition with theirs and they can't take that,” an angry Baptiste declared to Friday Mirror.

The writ was filed by attorney Edwards in the midst of the borough’s 1993 Borough Day celebrations.