The state-owned National Conservation Commission (NCC) looks set to end up in court over its decision to evict one of the food stall operators at the Oistins Bay Garden.
Monique Best has secured the legal services of Ralph Thorne, SC, who is also her parliamentary representative, to fight the NCC’s order that she quit the kiosk by August 31, 2023.
The veteran attorney informed Barbados TODAY on Friday that he has already served notice on the NCC of his intention to take it to court to get justice for his constituent and client.
“I am duty-bound in my parliamentary office to represent Ms Best’s interests, rights and entitlements in relation to the tenancy at the Bay Garden,” the MP for Christ Church South asserted.
“In my professional capacity, I have already served notice on the NCC, through its attorney-at-law, that I am ready to file proceedings in the High Court to protect this young entrepreneur’s commercial interests and rights.”
Best’s adopted mother Shirley Roberts ran the business known as Shirley’s Food Hut for 27 years but she died in June this year and the expectation was that her daughter would continue the operation.
But in a letter dated July 28, 2023, addressed to Thorne from the NCC’s attorney Arthur Holder, the commission informed that Best had no legal right to take over the operation.
“The executed lease between the National Conservation Commission and your client expressly prohibited your client from transferring the operation to her daughter, Ms Monique Best, and thus, there is no contractual relationship between my client and Ms Best,” Holder wrote on behalf of the NCC.
“Furthermore, my client has allocated kiosk #1 to another person, and that lease has been executed and is to take effect from August 1, 2023. My client, however, will undertake that in the event of one of the kiosks becoming vacant, your client would be given the first option.
“In the circumstances, my client is requesting that your client remove all the items from kiosk #F1 on or before August 31, 2023,” the state agency said.
But Best and Thorne have taken a no retreat, no surrender position.
“I have no intention of leaving,” the vendor told Barbados TODAY on Friday.
“Even though I am a chef, this food stall business is a major source of income that allows me to maintain the house, pay the bills and put food on the table. I was living with my godmother from when I was three weeks old, so I called her my mother. She raised me through this business, sent me to school…to PomMarine where I graduated in general catering. I assisted my mother with the business throughout the years.”
Best, who has no children, pointed out that there were other vendors who died and passed on their businesses to surviving family members and there had been no eviction in those cases.
Thorne informed Barbados TODAY there has been a practice of continuation of tenancies within the family when the nominal representative of the family dies.
“It is a practice that has legal significance within the contractual relationship between NCC and the nominal tenant. If it is a practice that is honoured in some cases, it must be honoured in all cases and I will not resile from my duty to ensure that justice always comes to my constituents and to my clients,” he contended.
The Government backbencher also warned the NCC that any attempt on its part to remove his client from the kiosk at the Oistins Bay Garden would be met with other legal action.
“The spectre of an unlawful trespass and attempted eviction by the NCC is certainly something that I do not wish to contemplate, and it would be most unseemly,” he said. “However, we are legally prepared to meet any hostility to this young lady’s rights.”
Persistent efforts to reach the NCC’s general manager Ryan Als and the agency’s attorney were unsuccessful up until the time of publication.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
