Ice-cream seller at St George’s Bay wins stay of eviction

The Land Department was stopped from evicting an ice-cream van from its regular parking slot in St George’s Bay after a court provisionally upheld the owner’s request for an injunction yesterday.

Carmelo Tanti, owner of Tanti Jr Paradise kiosk, filed the request after he received an eviction notice from the department on Tuesday giving him 24 hours’ notice to remove the van.

He claimed that the department’s actions were illegal because the eviction notice only gave it the legal power to evict people who did not have a title to the land or who were illegally encroaching.

He pointed out that he was not occupying land but simply parked his ice-cream van in the early morning, thus avoiding traffic, and drove home late at night once the traffic calmed down.

Also, he was very careful when he set up and dismantled his van because the traffic around the bay was very busy. However, he insisted that the slot where he regularly parked was in a legal parking area.

The mobile kiosk was an important source of his earnings especially during the summer months, Mr Tanti said.

Mr Tanti argued that he was not breaking any law especially because he had the necessary street hawker’s licence. He also said he had a permit from the St Julians local council to have a generator, which he did not use.

Lawyer David Camilleri signed the warrant.