Best back in business

Oistins Bay Garden food vendor Monique Best is back in her happy place.

After receiving the keys to a kiosk she operated, following threatened legal action and government intervention, she is again doing what she loves most – treating customers to tasty food.

Best told Barbados TODAY she was selling food at Shirley’s Food Hut again just days after a publicly promised settlement to the dispute with the National Conservation Commission (NCC).

I went in and filled out all the paperwork so the lease is in my name now. I got back the keys (last) Thursday and on Friday I was open. So I am happy to be back,” she said during an interview.

On Sunday, September 3, the NCC changed the locks at the kiosk Best operated from and placed a ‘No Trespassing’ sign, initiating the eviction process.

She had taken over the business from her adopted mother Shirley Roberts who passed away in June. Roberts was a long-standing vendor in the Oistins Bay Garden for close to 30 years and throughout that time Best worked with her.

However, she was given notice in July that she had no right to legally vend there and informed that the NCC had reassigned the kiosk to another vendor, Kemar Harris, who is the chairman of the Oistins Bay Garden Inc.

Best acquired the services of Senior Counsel Ralph Thorne who threatened to go to court to fight for his client’s right to continue operating there.

On Tuesday, September 5, Acting Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw and other officials visited the location and announced during a press conference that the NCC would arrange a lease agreement for Best and she would be reinstated at the kiosk. (SZB)