The concept of Street Market

The Garapan Street Market concept was implemented recently purportedly to spur new local entrepreneurship. I was hopeful that it would include young indigenous people willing to embrace risk, running their own businesses, staying proactively productive.

I was enthusiastic of this concept. It would have served as the vehicle upon which locals could explore the boundless benefits of productivity or being your own boss. It seems that the concept started out with this in mind. However, it eventually took on a shape that forced exclusion of most locals.

What’s wrong with current set-up? A lot! If the intent is to spur new businesses among the indigenous population, it has failed so grandly. If it were intended for those already in business in the hotel area, our money is best spent elsewhere. The program would have been jointly been implemented by those fully situated in the venue today. It became a concept that grants those already in business grand advantages at the expense and exclusion of prospective local businessmen.

How do we turn this misguided concept around?

The current venue needs relocating either to the space around the Marianas Museum or the Matsue Monument in Garapan. Concessions should be built with semi-permanent facilities. Each should be leased out to new or prospective businessmen. It should also include farmers, fishermen, local arts and crafts, among others.

The current site grants established businesses the upperhand, including bars where prostitution flourishes. Parking is one horrific frustration. The exercise of putting up canopies every week followed by dismantling are all tales of very poor planning. It seems it is catered to the “we few” businesses in and around the hotel district. There’s hardly any room to encourage new ones to participate.

While the concept encourages inclusion, the net effect is nothing more than a grand scheme of exclusion. It’s a well-meaning policy that was allowed full control of hawks in the area. This is far removed from the very intent of the Garapan Street Market concept. It became a vehicle for another grand exclusion of the indigenous people. It goes against an educational policy at NMC’s business incubator center, doesn’t it?

The greater issue in this matter is the consistent exclusion of prospective indigenous businessmen! We certainly have a lot of people here who wish to employ risk to move ahead. But it seems too that each trip to the door of opportunities, they get the slam job right of the cuff. The arrogance of the “we few” needs domesticating if only to grant them reality check. Otherwise, the program becomes completely exclusionary.

In Honolulu, the street market program is situated away from Waikiki. I read enough material of how new entrepreneurs have used the venue to sell their wares that include Hawaiian Sushi, five gallon bags of pop corn, fish fillets and products, farm produce, assorted local style barbecues, among others. It gives those who plan new businesses the opportunity to turn the street market concept into a business incubator.

In the process, prospective businessmen have even received encouragement from financial firms to plan their businesses with help from the bank. In other words, the concept is the very hotbed upon which more businesses are born. It is a concept that grants hardworking people willing to risk it all the opportunity to establish, strengthen and market new products and services.

There’s an issue that needs to be understood in this matter: Let It Be A Partnership! There’s a lot wrong with the current scheme, a reckless disregard of the need to allow the indigenous people assimilation into private ventures. It begins with granting them the opportunity so intended under the street market concept. Let’s do it right here and now!

Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.