Belize City Council Targets Unauthorized Mechanics in City Cleanup Effort

In a bid to improve the flow of traffic and cleaning up the streets, the Belize City Council is cracking down on mechanics who are not authorized to operate. The council says it is in the process of identifying mechanics operating without trade licenses as well as those who are harboring derelict vehicles on the streets. Love News understands that it is a part of an overall plan to beautify the city.  City Administrator Albert Vaughan spoke on this exercise and the rationale.   

Albert Vaughn, City Administrator, Belize City Council: “It’s an ongoing process. We have been doing it but doing it what we have done now is we are wrapping it up. These mechanics who operate without trade license and plus operate in a neighborhood that they create a lot of concern for the residents, abandoned vehicles on the streets we don’t know who stores what in those vehicles. We believe they’re used for criminal activity so we have stepped up. So our team is out there enforcing, enforcement team is out there to say to these people that we’ve had enough, it’s time now that we summons them to court and get the place cleaned up. Well the thing is we always say we want the little man to eat but they must do it without infringing on other people. You know you want to fix a vehicle on the street then do it but don’t have a pile of vehicles waiting and then you make the residents so miserable. So people must eat and if they apply for a trade license and we find that they’re in an area that does not affect the residents and so we don’t have any problem with that. But when you look at Fabers Road, look at the mechanic on Fabers Road not only the streets and endangering other people’s lives with the narrow street but look at the yard, the whole place become a junk yard. We have to clean that up and that’s what the council is about. We are saying to these mechanics that we are coming after them. They need to clean up their yards.”

Vaughan says the council has already removed derelict vehicles from several city streets.