West Bus Station, or west ‘dump’ station?

Vendors are appealing to the St John’s Development Corporation (SJDC) and the Ministry of Health to stop turning a blind eye to the extremely unsanitary conditions at the West Bus Station.
The improper disposal of waste, “the stench coming from the ‘supposed to be bathroom’,” and school children fighting are among the many problems that vendors have identified as problems that they face every day.
They said that the bathrooms have been in an incomplete state for years and the deplorable condition of the portable bathrooms, due to improper waste disposal is untenable since the vendors are engaged in the sale of food.
“We have to come and clean up this place every day and pay $15 every day or else no one will come to buy anything,” one enraged food vendor who operates at the terminal told OBSERVER media.
She lamented that on top of the daily fee that they have to pay and the vendors’ licence fee that is paid every year, she and other vendors have no other choice but to take it upon themselves to clean the vicinity of the bus station in a bid to keep their customers.
The woman, who has been working there for over 20 years, said that repeated complaints and appeals have been made to the SJDC and nothing practical has been done about the deplorable conditions.
Exposed gutters at the station have also been ignored by the SJDC, they said, despite promises made to fix them.
 
(More in today’s Daily Observer)