Lynnwood Road street sellers shown the door

Tshwane metro police have removed “noisy” street vendors selling wooden and metal ornaments in Pretoria east.

This followed complaints by an elderly resident at a public ward 85 meeting last week, about excessive hammering noise made by the vendors – who also produced their sculptures at the site on the corner of Solomon Mahlangu Drive and Lynnwood Road.

The meeting was held at the Willows Methodist Church. It gave residents from Equestria and surrounding suburbs the opportunity to meet their local ward councillors as well as mayor Stevens Mokgalapa.

By Thursday afternoon, metro police were on-site with several removal trucks to cart away the vendors’ art pieces.

Metro police returned on Friday morning, to remove more artworks.

Although the sculptors who made them were upset, local ward councillor Jacqui Uys said that she has warned them several times about keeping the area clean, quiet and tidy if they did not want residents to complain.

“I have told them several times in the past that they are welcome to sell their artworks on the roadside, as the community buys their stuff,” she said.

“However, this was only if they didn’t manufacture their products on-site, as they make a lot of noise with their hammers. Sometimes they make fires, creating air pollution. I also told them no littering.

“Those terms and conditions weren’t met by their side, which is why residents are still complaining and we see littering on their work sites. Thus, we told the TMPD to take immediate action,” said Uys.

Uys said that she has spoken several times to the vendors, trying to educate them about how to sell as informal traders.

“Informal traders such as these can register with the Tshwane municipality to receive a licence to sell.

“They will then receive a demarcated piece of land. The city will then specify that they can trade on Lynnwood Road and exactly which section of the road the trader will be allowed to trade.

“This area allocation will ensure that they are not close to retirement villages, or in a spot where they disrupt traffic flow or not in a spot where they themselves are in danger.”

Some of the vendors spoke to Rekord anonymously for fear of victimisation.

READ MORE: How to calmly react to an emergency

One of them who had his metal gardening ornaments impounded said that retrieving his products would cost him a lot of money.

“I have to pay R700 per trip to get my stuff at the pound in Denneboom. Then I have to pay a fine of around R1 500 for my stock to be released,” he said.

“It will take me three trips to get all my goods. Plus, I still don’t know where I will store them afterwards because they say we can’t lock up our stuff here anymore,” said the man.

Another vendor said he was “thinking of giving up on this job completely”.

“I have been doing this for a few months now,” he told Rekord. “But I want to get another job because this isn’t the first time police take our stock. It’s very expensive to get our stuff back; that’s why we have to hide them when we see the police coming.”

He pointed to a trailer with some artwork poorly concealed underneath a blue tarpaulin sheet.

“The owner of those sculptors hid them in that trailer when police came and he ran away… I hid some of my stuff near the garage at the corner,” he said.

Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:

Rekord East
Rekord North
Rekord Centurion
Rekord Moot

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram