Arcade fire victims begging KSAC for help

The group of vendors who lost all their goods in a fire at the Redemption Arcade on June 12 in downtown Kingston are growing restive of the silence of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAC) as they seek to piece their lives back together.

The vendors, who were paying rental fees ranging from $2,000 to $4,000 per month, are pleading to the KSAC to inform them about when they will be compensated.

"Imagine we rent somewhere from them, and the place burn down with our goods and they don't come and say nothing to us," Sharon Davis said. "I used to pay them $2,000 every week, so a dem fi come to we and have a meeting and tell we what is going on."

Restart selling

The 50-year-old vendor said that if it wasn't for some savings she had put away in the bank, she wouldn't have been able to restart selling.

"Mi get a loan from a family member and mi did have $200,000 in the bank, a it mi use and buy back some underpants and shoes," Davis said pointing to her stall in front of the gates of the fire-razed market.

But not all of the vendors are as lucky as Davis. Allison Baldie, 65, has been pacing back and forth on the streets of downtown Kingston ever since the incident, wondering how she will be able to start making a living for herself again.

"Is my kids them give me food these days. All I do is walk up and down and cry," the resident of Doncaster Drive told THE STAR with tears in her eyes.

She said she is begging the Mayor of Kingston Delroy Williams to address her concern.

"Mr Mayor, I am begging you. From mi come the morning and see the fire, me a walk up and down like mi mad. I can't believe that mi lose everything. You need to do something," Baldie said.

THE STAR made several attempts to contact Williams through phone calls over the past four days, but the calls went unanswered.