Melrose Yam Park to reopen by weekend
Published:Friday | December 10, 2021 | 12:12 AMTamara Bailey/Gleaner Writer
MANDEVILLE, Manchester:
After a four-month closure, vendors and bar operators at the Manchester-based Melrose Yam Park could be allowed to resume operations at the facility as early as this weekend.
Manchester Municipal Corporation CEO Winston Palmer yesterday said that just a few vendors have not yet finalised preparatory work for compliance after the facility was closed by the health department, but all is set for the reopening.
“Vendors are putting some loose ends together with respect to licences and other health requirements. Based on what is happening now, by this weekend, most of the operators at the Yam Park will be up and running. In respect of the bar operators, most of them are okay and will start operations later during this week,” he said.
Chief Public Health Inspector Charmaine Palmer-Cross indicated that the meetings held with the vendors had gone well and the health department is expecting the operators to follow the guidelines to avoid public health breaches.
Sending a strong warning about the appropriate use of space, Mandeville Mayor Donovan Mitchell indicated that more stringent routine checks will now be made at the facility.
“... We are appealing to the persons who will be at this entity to take care of it. We are working on our scheduled maintenance day document, that will be used weekly or biweekly to make sure that we don’t go back to where we are coming from,” said Mitchell, who also chairs the Manchester Municipal Corporation.
He pointed out that vendors deemed fully compliant will be allowed to operate at the Melrose Yam Park.
“Only the persons who have met the criteria, in terms of their food handler’s permit, going to the training and in terms of all that was laid out in the document we got from the health department as to what they are to do will go back there.”
Mitchell revealed that one shop, whose reportedly delinquent operator has refused to comply with the orders, will remain closed until further notice.
“... From my information, that person has been taken to court for rent and all of that, and that shop will remain closed until all the necessary things are done before it will be reopened,” he said.
Additionally, following the closure of the Christiana abattoir in March, Palmer-Cross said that seven Mandeville butchers who responded to an invitation to meet with the health department and the corporation will be allowed to use the facility on Tuesdays, while the remaining seven butchers from the Christiana area will be facilitated on Thursdays and Fridays.
She indicated that the corporation is working on finalising logistics as regards the butchers’ roster.
“Only those who registered and came to the session will be allowed to operate at that facility in Christiana,” Palmer-Cross said.
With poor crowd control at the facility being one of the issues that resulted in closure, the chief health inspector reminded the corporation that it ought to be a matter of priority.