The maiden Hay Al-Andalus Ramadan Shopping Festival (bazar) opened at Tripoli Sports City on Thursday with about 200 stalls offering various goods and gifts.
The event takes advantage of the large car park in Tripoli Sports city which is large enough to hold both the marquee and offer parking for dozens of cars. The location is also away from the car-jammed streets of Hay Al-Andalus, Girgarish and Siyayhia.
Moreover, the event has been leveraged by the Hay Al-Andalus Municipality to remove all unlicensed street vendors who usually illegally takeover pavements and shopfronts at this time to sell their goods.
The Municipality said unlicensed vendors in the past have caused fights, general unruly behaviour and dirtied the streets. With this in mind, the Municipality has this year offered the unlicensed vendors, who are overwhelmingly youth, stalls at the token price of LD 5 (US $ 1) to keep them off the streets and encourage them in their entrepreneurship.
