Vendor dealt a hard blow

A food-cart operator in Belleville, St Michael is counting hundreds of dollars in losses after thieves robbed her of all the cooking equipment she needs to operate her businesses.

A saddened Sandra Maloney of Sha-San’s Cart told Barbados TODAY that sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning the thieves stole her grill, two full bottles of gas and one empty bottle, along with a four-foot white plastic folding table, which she said were valued at an estimated total of $2,000.

Forty-nine-year-old Maloney who has been operating in front of the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) George Street headquarters for 17 years, said the items were stolen from a locked storage room located on the DLP compound.

Owner of Sha San’s cart is now counting her losses after significant cooking equipment were stolen.

And while police are investigating the matter, Maloney said she now has to start rebuilding from scratch. She is appealing to the public not to purchase the items from anyone who is unable to verify how they acquired them. She has even taken to social media to spread the message.

“The grill is a black and silver Char-Broil grill. Everybody know me from Belleville and if anybody sees anybody trying to sell these things they can notify me or the police because I called the police and they went yesterday. The table has my name written all over it. I am just trying to help myself.

“There is a guy who used to operate a bar at DLP on Fridays and usually they would break in by him most of the time and the police never hold anyone for it. So that is why I said I will not just sit down, I will try to help myself,” Maloney said.

The mother of one son who is studying said on Monday she had “the intuition” that something was not right at the storeroom.

She said on Monday night she contacted a friend who lives close to the headquarters and asked him to check on her belongings.

“He tell me that he does pass and check all the time. Then he called me yesterday [Tuesday] and tell me ‘you were right’ because they did break in. When he went the cart was out and he knew immediately that something happened.

The storage area where food vendor Sandra Maloney kept her grill and other cooking equipment which were stolen.

“He went in and see that some of the stuff that they leave back was outside and he took some pictures and sent to me. From the pictures he sent to me I could have seen that the grill and the gas bottles were gone. But they left the big cooler and one of the grill tops and the saucepans and pans,” she said.

Maloney noted that like any small business owner who sacrificed and worked hard to build their operation, she felt robbed of her livelihood.

She explained that she recently spent almost all of her savings to get her vehicle overhauled and could not afford to replace the stolen items at this time.

“Not being able to work right now, the income is really minimum. So for me now I have to start back all over again and I can’t even go back to work when things settle down with [the COVID-19] pandemic] because I have to be able now to source gas bottles and source a grill,” Maloney said.

anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb