Mission UNpossible: The hunt for the beach vendor

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

"Come plunder me' barrow, ye handsome folksies! Couple 'peaches are a dime, there's not much left! Eeeverything is fair and square, you come, cash, and carry! Eh?"
...and...
"A cob o' corn is gymnastics fo' tha teeth, lambada for the tongue, y'all!"
...and...
"Hot warm corn, buns with sesame, t'is like Madonna's breakfast, Lady Gaga's lunch, like Mike Tyson's dinner!"
...and...
"Whoever knows best, stops here, ya'll! Eh?"

Those are just a pinch of all the verbal gems that usually come out of the mouths of scrawny tanned colorite Gypsy vendors that we've grown so accustomed to seeing around our beaches in recent years. And this season, it would seem, the beach jobbers have become defter, smarter, and more skillful in this never ending hide and seek game that they've always played with the stalking food inspectors, hygiene authorities and the likes of them.

You know the game. First play this in a separate tab, ya know, just for atmosphere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LsLArvYut4

At the start of this summer season, the much dreaded Agency of Foods announced that they'd be doubling their efforts in dealing with this pesky pest that is illegal beach trade. You know, one of the greatest horrors always rubbing its ugly muzzle against the plump butt that is our beloved bureaucratic machine, which works for the sake of people's peace and everything that is right in this world. But even the briefest glimpse on the whole situation reveals the terrible truth: all their efforts have been going in vain!!!11!1
(Here's the place where you sniff, sob, then sniff again).

The greatest attraction on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast is called "beach vendor". And it's far from going extinct, noooo no way. Not at least on the posh Varna and Golden Sands beaches, or the ancient ones in Sozopol and Sunny Beach / Nessebar. Or further south, along the wilder Strandzha coast bathing in the sunrays and the scent of fig trees. The crowded beaches are awash with dark-skinned, exotic looking tradesmen, loaded with buckets of boiled corn, circular simit bread (called Gevrek), cardboard boxes full of half-rotten bananas, and whatever else your mind can come up with. Some would scream in full voice that they're offering the best sunflower seed your tongue has ever known, or will ever know (salted from the waves of the good old Black Sea, my brother!) Many would try employing their best wits to come up with the weirdest interlingual tongue-twister you've ever heard, or will ever hear. Sentences stuffed with German, Polish, Russian, English and French phrases, twisted and turned into all sorts of pretzel forms, caress your ear with their awkward sound coming from all sides. And don't get me started on the smell of those guys... A day in the scorching sun could do miracles to a guy's skin, you know!

The most curious part is, they don't seem bothered by the controlling authorities even one tiny bit. "I have a health-care card, I can show you it!", a charming and particularly toothless dude, well beyond his 50s, would shoot back at'cha, unruffled by your bold inquiry. "You can send the Hygiene agents to me if you like, I'll show them whatever papers they want!" Something tells me this guy can't even sign his name, save with an "X", but another part of me wants to assure me that he does have all the papers, duly signed and stamped by the respective, respectful authorities.

And there comes the cherry of the cake: "I say let'em give jobs to them people, then come preach to me what a wrong thing I'm doing! Then let'em ban cash'n'carry trade if they can! Eh?" You can't possibly argue with that, can you!?

Others among the swarthy tradesfolk were pretty much in the know about what sort of consequence would await them if they were caught selling stuff for food right on the beach, without a permit. A somewhat younger dude once shared with me the cool story that a few days ago, Pamela Anderson's fellow Baywatch dudes had been his last salvation.

"They came, the bastards. The Food agents, ay. They ran after me, but couldn't catch me. No chance to catch me when I start running! So I left my kettle of corn with the beach guard, and he hid it safely while I was busy running away from the agents".
"Meh, you don't have no nothing dude, suppose they caught you, then what?", I was confused.
"If they caught me they'd fine me! The ticket is 4-5 grand, ey! It could get to 15 grand even! I got no cash-register, I pay no taxes, people don't know what they're eating from me!", he confessed. "I don't have the money, see. I'd probably stay in a warm place for some time. It's not that bad, 'speshully in winter, ey."

The Agency of Food and Hygiene in the city of Varna reports they've already issued a few hundred penalties for such infringements. Meanwhile, they insist that the ones who should be chasing off the illegal street vendors selling corn and buns on the beach, are the beach concessioners themselves. "Once an entrepreneur has signed a lease contract for a beach, they have agreed to manage the territory in a way that guarantees there would be no illegal commerce, and the customers' health would not be put at risk". In their minds, the market would help itself and regulate that "scum" and keep it out of sight.

Except, as it turns out, the leaseholders of the beaches don't look very willing to deprive themselves of the mutual benefit they're having with those vendors. Often times they'd even aid them in hiding their tracks and avoiding regulation from any authority but the occasional elderly Russian lady who'd complain about the noise from their constant screeching, and even more rarely a parent finding out their kid has got a diarrhea after eating one of those hotdogs and will have to spend the rest of their vacation in the hotel room. No biggie, I guess!

"We do pay our share!", an icecream vendor with a very charming smile revealing two lines of rotten teeth, said in an interview for the bTV network. "6 grand is our rent for the whole beach. So when we pay our dues, the concessioners have nothing to complain about!"

The official representatives of the tourist industry were sceptical right from the start of season that the authorities would be able to deal with the pest of beach trade. "Representatives of this grey industry, mostly female, are regularly to be seen carrying large bags full of all sorts of foods. The moment a controller steps on the beach, those get instantly warned by a network of covert agents, they hide into some obscure alley in the park, or squat in the bushes pretending to pee, while the inspection passes. Obviously the authorities cannot deploy inspectors on the beach all day long, they simply do not have enough people!", a speaker for one of the larger hotel associations in Sunny Beach said in the same TV report. Poor thing, he looked so depressed!

The chairman of the Varna association of restaurants and hotels added to the choir of mournful whimpering, "How could we deal with all this, I wonder? I can tell you what I see: the Gypsy brothers bake pancakes right beside the beach, then hide them in bags in the bushes, the ants crawl into them, but the vendors would then offer them to the tourists anyway, as if nothing had happened! They'd toss some of the ants off before that, of course!"

See, there used to be a former prime-minister of this country, who once, in the middle of the biggest hyperinflation crisis (one that you spoiled Westerners would probably never see, and I surely hope so), once called to people, "For God's sake, brethren, do not buy anything!!!" OK, he meant it as a warning not to jump to the stores and buy off everything your eyes would come across, once the post-communist market had been suddenly liberalized. There already was enough stuff in the shops anyway! Why assault them as if Armageddon would be coming tomorrow? Fine, his call could've made some sense at the time maybe.

But now his phrase might be converted to "For God's sake, brethren, do not buy stuff... from the beach!!!" Maybe that could become the new slogan of the Agency of Foods that they'd display on those huge advert billboards lining up the densely packed promenade in Sunny Beach. Eh? "We cannot do this without some aid from the citizens themselves, some help from the customers, because they should be carrying their share of the responsibility too!", the speaker of the Agency of Food preached. "If you buy a hot-dog or an icecream while it's 40 C outside, from an unidentified vendor, it's on you!" Except... it's damn hot out there, brother! I can't resist a nice cold icecream, okay?

So, beach trade is doing pretty fine, and is even flourishing, I should say. A colleague of mine just came back from the beach and told me, "The corn was nice, warm, juicy, you know... I'm not scared to buy food at the beach. Some even actively look for it".

"Right!", another colleague chimed in, while boasting of her newly acquired suntan. "For some reason, there were no bananas on the beach for two days. On the third day, when they came we asked them why weren't there any bananas. Because, the guy said, it's not worth the effort! We can't make good money from bananas because there was too little demand. But see, today we've brought a new batch, we bought'em 2 for 1 lev so they're selling well. When they grow old and rotten, perhaps we'd start trading them 3 for 1 lev. See? Nothing goes to waste here".

It's not just the poor hygiene standards of those sweaty vendors (wherever it exists at all), but also the way the food is being prepared and stored, that raises some valid concerns for many folks, which is why many of them refrain from buying even a chewing gum from the beach. "I never buy me anything at the beach that's not put in a package", my gf was as categorical as she could be. I said fine, but I reserve my right to buy the occasional icecream whenever I feel thirsty. "Do it at your own peril!", she snapped.

There are as many stories and attitudes as the people there are, baking under the summer sun on our beaches. And in conclusion, I guess the point I tried making here is that everyone knows that where there is demand, there is supply. So, if anyone so much insists to see the illegal beach vendors disappearing from the sandy streak, first we'd all have to stop buying from them. And I say good luck to that!

Comments

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I don't know... I don't think I would mind trying one of those circular breads called Gevrek.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

This street/beach trade sounds like an old tradition. Why would anyone want to erase a centuries old tradition for the sake of some whiners? Sure, put some standards for quality and preservation but don't remove it. It's part of the charm of your place.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Oh but they do want to keep it. Put it under strict control, make them pay the tax to the last dime, put it all in a neat package and make everything orderly and tidy as the EU postulates. Nothing of this sort any more, I guess:

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

Do people actually get sick from the food, though? I'm sure some do, but is it an epidemic?

Otherwise, it's all about the money (as opposed to being mostly about the money).

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

No one could say for sure if it's the food that's left rotting in the sun, or the sun itself doing some nasty tricks with people's stomachs.

An epidemic? I don't think so.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

It's time for authorities to draw a line in the sand. A campaign to ensure that people are aware of the risks of buying unregulated food seems like the best approach. If people get sick from buying risky food, it's on them.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

If they ever really cracked down on the "street vendors" a huge portion of the "shadow economy" would be lost and maybe up to 20% of the illegals would have to leave or starve, or go on public assistance.

When I was young (sometime after Noah but before Watergate) I actually used to do vending (at parades, races, sporting events, etc). Parades were notorious for "pirate" vendors (those without licenses) now a days they really crack down on them, but day to day street vendors seem to get away with a lot (possibly because the are mostly poc?)
A few years ago we pre-packaged cotton candy for a big event, with no sanitary over-sight, but the health inspectors were in force at the event., myy point being is, you really can't trust pre-packaged stuff :-D

[usekh.livejournal.com]

day to day street vendors seem to get away with a lot (possibly because the are mostly poc?)
Because as everyone knows when it comes to crime People of Colour get away with so much more than white folks.

Or was that another of your 'jokes'?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Or possibly I was referring to "Special Order 40"...This is serious stuff in Los Angeles, only an age joke implied.

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

but day to day street vendors seem to get away with a lot (possibly because the are mostly poc?)

Um

What

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

All that bare flesh around... Can't help but grab an icecream to cool off!

(Fans self)

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Eh, I got really sick from a beach ice cream in Poland once. Truly completely out and violently ill. (I have no idea if the vendor had a license or not, but being a tourist from a place where everybody and their dog has a license, I was trusting), and I can tell you that I wouldn't buy shit from those vendors no matter how good it smelled. The problem is, that bad food can really kill you, and does every year in the summer (in any country), my guess is that such cases have not been brought up sufficiently as scare tactics.
Also, your health authorities are lame. What you do is to place really attractive (often female) undercover agents on the beaches, to follow, locate and identify problematic vendors, and those legitimate vendors who are bribed into helping them.

Seriously though, there should be a way to get a middle road going between completely unsanitary food sold the libertarian way, and authoritarian health agents regulating everything. As I said, people do die of bad food, it's no joke. A man died in healthy Sweden just last year I think, from bad chicken, and because such cases are so rare there, they get a lot of publicity.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

There's a saying here, "They've built the true communism". Meaning the paradise on Earth, not that perverse form of communism we used to have. That fully applies to Sweden.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Do they say that about Sweden? Fascinating. I think the weather would stop it from being a paradise, among other things though. :) Also, way way too much private business to be any form of communism. I like the general concept though, in spite of jarring details.
We don't have such beaches as you guys, though, that's for sure...(your post made me both long for a vacation, as well as a Balkan style lunch)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Don't you worry about the weather. We're slowly becoming like Sahara, you'll become like what we used to be. Maybe you'll even have cool beaches in the future!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

If we're comparing doomsday scenarios, Swedish resources are most likely going to be bound up completely in flooding aversion projects, in such a future. :(