Nassau, Bahamas – A routine 48-hour closure of the iconic Bay Street Straw Market for annual maintenance and deep cleaning has sparked financial strain for local straw vendors, who warn the shutdown is cutting into critical earnings during an already sluggish sales season. What’s more, many sellers lost additional working days to the pre-closure work of preparing their stalls, compounding the financial blow.
Rebecca Small-Morley, president of the Straw Business Persons Society, explained that while vendors received roughly 30 days’ advance notice of the shutdown, which runs across Wednesday and Thursday, the timing still poses a major hardship for workers who rely entirely on daily in-person sales to make ends meet. The market is scheduled to resume regular operations at 7 a.m. on Friday.
The Straw Market Authority, the governing body that oversees the popular tourist-focused market, has defended the two-day closure, arguing that full-scale deep cleaning, structural repairs, and routine maintenance work cannot safely be completed while the market is open to shoppers. Executive Chairman Joseph Johnson emphasized in an official statement that the shutdown is necessary to complete “essential work” to uphold a safe, hygienic environment for vendors, market staff, and the thousands of tourists that visit the site annually.
Small-Morley clarified that vendors do not push back on the need for cleaning and upkeep; their complaint centers on the disruptive scheduling of the work, and they are calling for administrative changes to minimize future income losses. Initially, the authority required vendors to remove all of their merchandise from the market entirely, a demand that Small-Morley and the Straw Advancements Association pushed back against. Small-Morley cited a past incident where one vendor moved all her products off-site, only for heavy rain to damage a portion of her stock, leaving her to cover unexpected extra costs for transportation and labor to relocate the goods. After negotiations, vendors reached a compromise to move all stock off the floor and store it inside their individual stalls, eliminating the need for full off-site removal.
Looking ahead, Small-Morley is advocating for alternative scheduling for future maintenance work. She proposed that routine cleaning be completed after vendors end their daily shifts or during quiet evening hours, with more specialized, large-scale work scheduled separately on an as-needed basis to avoid full shutdowns. “I’m hoping that they could hire people going forward who could come in and do cleaning at a certain point where we wouldn’t have to be disrupted any longer from any income, especially during the low season,” she said in an interview.
Small-Morley noted that even meager daily earnings make a huge difference for vendors during the slow sales period. “I got a vendor who said I made $30 one day. The next day, I made $40,” she shared. “I’m just saying, if she needed to buy lunch, she still could buy lunch. That may not be much, but it’s something coming in.” The shutdown hits especially hard for low-income vendors who do not have substantial emergency savings to cover gaps in income. “Let’s face it, an average person doesn’t have $1,000 in their savings account to say, we have a week off; that’s not an average person,” she added.
In a silver lining, the market’s closure coincides with a new initiative to support vendors: the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage is hosting its first-ever vendor empowerment session on the second day of the shutdown, with two sessions offered to accommodate different schedules: one from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and a second from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Small-Morley confirmed that any vendor who attends the session will receive a one-week rent discount for their stall, and the event will also include a listening session where vendors can voice concerns and share suggestions for the market’s future management.
Despite this positive step, Small-Morley flagged ongoing communication gaps between vendors and the newly appointed Straw Market Authority board. She explained that while vendors have seen the names of new board members, they have not received formal introductions, nor have they been briefed on the board’s strategic plans for the market. “You don’t know who is who, and that’s a problem because I feel that you should introduce yourself to the two leaders of the market,” she said. “Give us your game plan, ask us what we are expecting or looking forward to from the new board, but nothing of that nature has happened.” Small-Morley added that the timing of the new board’s appointment has not been publicly shared with vendors, and poor communication remains a persistent systemic issue at the market. She has called on the new board to establish clear, consistent lines of communication with vendors and their elected representatives.
Small-Morley also addressed recent public speculation that the two-day closure was timed to coincide with the upcoming royal visit of King Charles III, telling reporters that she has received no official information linking the shutdown to the trip, and the speculation is unfounded.