FISH?VENDORS?at Oistins, Christ Church, and at Weston, St James, say they support the random inspections being carried out by quality control officers.
In a surprise check-up on Friday at the Bridgetown Fishing Complex, officers seized trollies used to transport fish because the vendors were not following the correct protocol.
Patsy Worrell, a long time vendor at the Weston fish market, said she had no problem with the officers’ action since all vendors underwent training on how to transport fish in trollies.
“You have to put plastic in the trolley and wash it every time you use it because the spawn does stick in the holes and lead to bacteria,” she said. “That is the correct procedure.
“I?was selling fish from 1995 before there was a market. I use to sell fish at the side of the road and I learn a lot from selling fish. You have to be very health conscious and you have to be very careful with what you are doing.
“I?agree with what the officers are doing because it will benefit us.
“If I sell fish that is not good nobody will come to me again and it will spoil my business. In order for me to do a good business I have to do what is right for me to keep my job. I can’t have people saying ‘you see that short woman that look nice don’t go to her. She look nice but she fish ain’t clean’.”
Worrell said she enjoyed going to the training sessions and her aim was to please her customers.
A colleague, Keely Gibbons, said they sometimes cleaned the fish market even though there were cleaners on hand to do the job.
“This is our work environment so we have to make sure it is always clean,” she said.
Over at Oistins, several empty trollies were seen lined off neatly at the side of the market but fish vendors said they no longer used them to transport fish. “They are only there for us to put our chopping boards inside of them,” one vendor explained.
However, a vendor who gave her name as “Pat” said she still used her trolley and since the training session she always placed a sheet of clean plastic in the trolley before filling it with ice for the fish.
“That is the correct way to do it,” she proudly declared, as she pointed to her trolley which was filled with fish.
Vendor Grace Jones pointed out that the only problem which the vendors were experiencing at the popular Christ Church market was the unavailability of ice from the machine which had been out of service for over a year.
Pointing to a blue container which she had bought half filled with ice at $50, Jones lamented that it was double the price which they usually paid for ice from the machine at Oistins.
“This is hard because the vendors now using all their profit to buy ice and the authorities are not telling us when the machine will be fixed,” she said.
