[Reader-list] Mexico City and Battle With Vendors

[Ananth S]

Mexico City Wins Battle in War Against Street Vendors
By Patrick Harrington

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? 
pid=20601109&sid=ap9hEJP22nMU&refer=home
Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico City reached a temporary accord to  
remove as many as 20,000 street vendors from a tourist-filled  
downtown square, avoiding a showdown with police today even though  
the peddlers vow to return.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard and local retailers say the vendors, who sell  
everything from chocolate to baby socks, often clog the streets,  
scare tourists and discourage tax-paying merchants from opening shops  
in the Zocalo, a central square near the national palace.

Ebrard had set a deadline of today for them to move. He sent in 1,200  
police officers this morning to ensure the vendors' orderly departure  
and prevent them from returning, police spokesman Ricardo Olayo said  
in a telephone interview.

The vendors, who spread their wares on sidewalk blankets and  
makeshift stalls near buildings adorned with Diego Rivera murals,  
said they agreed to leave but will return unless the city allows them  
to set up in the square during festivals and unless they are able to  
survive at a new location.

The crackdown marks the latest attempt to remove or control the  
sellers, whose roots predate the fall of Mexico City to Spanish  
conquerors in 1521. The clash is also emblematic of Mexico's  
challenge to transform informal merchants, who may represent as much  
as 50 percent of total retail activity, into tax-paying businesspeople.

``It won't work,'' said Juana Parada Flores earlier this week as she  
set out on the sidewalk an assortment of chocolate, peanuts and candy  
made from tamarind fruit. ``They can move us temporarily, but they  
will never stop us from selling or from coming back.''

Aztec Markets

The main Aztec markets, which were just blocks from where vendors now  
sell pirated software and music, drew as many as 60,000 people a day,  
said Michael E. Smith, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State  
University.

The Spanish encouraged the markets at first, because they ensured the  
flow of food and goods into the city, he said. But soon they began to  
try to remove the wandering, unorganized vendors.

The vendors left the center last night and early this morning after a  
meeting with Mexico City officials yesterday that was accompanied by  
street protests.

As many as 10,000 vendors blocked parts of the city's main avenue  
yesterday. Sellers riding on tractor-trailer trucks held signs  
reading ``I'm a street vendor because I have to be'' and ``The street  
doesn't belong to us but it does belong to hunger and necessity.''

`For Today'

The leader who represents the sellers near the national palace said  
today their deal with the city may prove temporary.

``We are in agreement with the authorities to leave the streets clean  
for today,'' Maria del Carmen Lopez said by telephone. ``We are never  
going to disappear.''

Messages left for Ebrard at his office weren't returned.

The vendors had vowed to stand firm if the police moved in with  
force. On a side street clogged with stalls brimming with  
undergarments and t-shirts earlier in the week, Hugo Cesar Aguilar,  
22, pulled a metal pipe out from near his feet.

``We'll see what happens,'' he said. ``If there is an agreement we  
will go quietly, if not there could be blows.''

Business leaders in Mexico are skeptical that Ebrard's crackdown will  
last. Mayors before him have removed street vendors from tourist  
areas temporarily but have lacked the police manpower to keep them  
from coming back.

`Recurring Theme'

``We are aware that this is a recurring theme in the Mexican economy  
and that it will continue to be a recurring theme,'' said Arturo  
Mendicuti, vice president of the National Chamber of Commerce,  
Services and Tourism for Mexico City.

The government must continue to fight the vendors, he said, because  
they foster a culture of stolen and pirated goods.

``We have two economies that exist in the same country without any  
coordination,'' he said. ``We are living a double reality.''

Eduardo Solorzano, chief executive officer of Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB,  
said in an Oct. 2 interview that his company is taking market share  
from the informal sellers.

``This helps us, as long as it's consistent,'' he said of the crackdown.

When police trucks approached a stoplight earlier this week on Pino  
Suarez street, young men began to whistle. In seconds, Parada, the  
candy seller, packed up her inventory, stacked it in an alley and  
covered it with a sheet.

She repeated the process every 10 minutes as the police passed by.  
It's a dance the vendors describe with the Spanish word for  
bullfighting, ``torear,'' a reference to the constant taunting and  
dodging of police.

Parada said she once worked in a garment factory for six months. She  
makes more, and can watch her six children, by selling snacks on the  
sidewalk, she said.

``If they relocate us to a place where we can't sell, we will just  
return to play hide and seek.''