{"id":243756,"date":"2022-11-23T11:18:40","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T09:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/crime-harming-business-at-mitchells-plain-town-centre-say-traders\/"},"modified":"2022-11-23T11:18:40","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T09:18:40","slug":"crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime is harming business in Mitchells Plain, say traders"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/mitchells_plain_town_centre.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Mitchells Plain Town Centre traders say they rarely see police or City of Cape Town law enforcement officers patrolling the area. Photos: Tariro Washinyira<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mitchells Plain Town Centre traders say they are losing business to the nearby mall because of crime.<\/li>\n<li>They also complain that they are being crowded out by numerous traders without licences.<\/li>\n<li>The City of Cape Town says it is working with the traders and with law enforcement to improve the situation.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Muggings, drug dealing, pickpockets and gangs demanding protection money are harming business, say Mitchells Plain Town Centre traders. The traders say they are losing customers to Promenade Mall, and banks and major shops have left the area.<\/p>\n<p>They also complain that they face tough competition from traders without permits who are crowding them out. There is no policing or police visibility, they say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery morning when I come here the place is littered with used condoms, beer cans and empty food containers,\u201d says fishmonger Shireen Christians. She has been selling snoek and hake for 25 years. \u201cFor many years we have been asking the City to fence the place,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince the age of 12, I was helping my mother to serve customers here. The profits paid school fees for me and my siblings through matric.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/shireen_christians.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Since the age of 12, when she helped her mother, Shireen Christians has been selling snoek and hake at the Town Centre.<\/p>\n<p>Three years ago, the traders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/informal-traders-protest-mitchells-plain\/\">protested<\/a> outside Lentegeur Civic Centre, demanding that the City of Cape Town deal with unlicensed traders and provide a safe and secure environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGangsters walk around asking for protection money \u2026 If we can get SAPS and City Law Enforcement to operate here, business will pick up again,\u201d says Clinton Andrews, who has three shops in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews said unlicensed traders were selling in front of his shops, blocking the way.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/clinton_andrews.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Clinton Andrews sells fish and chips and has three shops in the Town Centre. He says he is fed up with traders without permits selling in front of his shops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe law was good back in the day and City\u2019s law enforcement would come twice a day. Now they don\u2019t come at all,\u201d says Elis Peterson who has been trading for over 30 years. She has four stalls for potatoes and she pays R550 a month to the City. Peterson said unlicensed traders were undercutting those who paid for their licences.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/elis_peterson.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders-3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Elis Peterson with her son, Timothy Seconds. She has been trading for over 40 years and has four stalls for potatoes in Town Centre. She complained about the lack of visible policing.<\/p>\n<p>Rosheda Muller, chairperson of the Cape Peninsula Informal Traders Forum, which represents 50 trading associations including Mitchells Plain Town Centre, said unlicensed traders flooded in at the festive season. She said this harmed long standing licensed traders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a lot of crime, drug dealing, shoplifting and taxi violence,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we can\u2019t trade we can\u2019t feed our children. The City has realised that the informal economy is a big player in an economy and [it] needs to form a partnership with us as they don\u2019t have the capacity to manage alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said the Forum had met with the City, but progress \u201chas been very slow\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>An unlicensed trader GroundUp spoke to said the process of applying for a permit was slow and difficult. He said he did not want to pay for a licence for the full year because he only made money in December. The trader, who used to work in Parow and Khayelitsha and has been selling in Mitchells Plain for three months, said when law enforcement officers came they imposed a R500 fine, but he had not been fined yet.<\/p>\n<p>City spokesperson for Law Enforcement Wayne Dyason said in the past two months the City had issued 215 fines for various transgressions, including 91 for \u201cillegal trading\u201d in Mitchells Plain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther fines were for open fires in a public place, unpacking of goods in public without written authority, obstructing or interfering with the duties of an officer, accumulation of waste in trading areas, and the use of drugs in a public place, amongst others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mayco Member for Economic Growth James Vos acknowledged that the number of traders without permits has increased over the past two years. \u201cThis can be attributed to the impact of Covid on formal businesses,\u201d he said. He said trading was seen \u201cas a last resort\u201d by many people. \u201cThe City is doing its best to deal with the impact of these people trading in restricted trading areas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the City had created overnight storage for fresh produce traders and held monthly meetings with the informal trading steering committee at the Town Centre.<\/p>\n<p>He said the City Law Enforcement unit, the City\u2019s Area Economic Development (AED) officials and the South African Police Service (SAPS) did conduct joint operations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore will be done by continuing to plan and act jointly with informal traders in dealing with these matters. The Town Centre remains the highest visited shopping centre in Mitchells Plain given its historic and heritage significance. Traders still find the Town Centre the preferred market to sell their goods,\u201d said Vos.<\/p>\n<p>Captain Frederick Van Wyk, of SAPS, said the area was adequately patrolled. Traders with complaints about policing should approach police management at Mitchells Plain SAPS, he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/crime-is-harming-business-in-mitchells-plain-say-traders.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitchells Plain Town Centre traders say they rarely see police or City of Cape Town law enforcement officers patrolling the area. Photos: Tariro Washinyira Mitchells Plain Town Centre traders say they are losing business to the nearby mall because of crime. They also complain that they are being crowded out by numerous traders without licences. 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