A 75-Year-Old Wood Sculptor Vowed to Fight His Eviction Notice. The Court Just Sided With Him

• Walton Spence has worked from Jacob Taylor Beach for years
• He vowed to fight a removal notice from the NRCA
• A Supreme Court injunction has now paused the eviction
• The regulator did not oppose the pause

Walton Spence, a 75-year-old wood sculptor working from a craft shop at Jacob Taylor Beach in Trelawny, told the Jamaica Observer he would fight a removal notice the Natural Resources Conservation Authority had served on beach vendors. I’m going to fight it, he said, standing inside the shop he had built his livelihood around.

Spence’s defiance has since been backed by the courts: Justice Andrea Thomas granted a Supreme Court injunction temporarily blocking the NRCA from evicting at least 40 people from the Jacob Taylor Beach lands, at the end of an application by attorneys for four of the affected residents, part of a broader lawsuit seeking judicial review of the eviction notices. Twelve of the 40 residents own shops at the beach, formerly known as Derby Beach, some having occupied the premises for decades.

The quit notices had given residents just one month to vacate from the date they were served, a deadline that would have taken effect well before any court could rule on the underlying legal challenge, making the injunction itself, rather than a final ruling, the thing actually preserving vendors’ position for now. NEPA CEO Leonard Francis, whose agency carries out the NRCA’s administrative functions, confirmed the regulator did not oppose the injunction application. It really just preserves the status quo, he said.

NRCA chairman Christopher Whyms-Stone framed the underlying eviction push as restoring the beach’s original 2003 rehabilitation purpose, a model public beach that was well-maintained, environmentally responsible and freely accessible, rather than a punitive action against long-term vendors. The Supreme Court is set to hear the full judicial review application on October 6, the date that will determine whether Spence’s defiance, and the injunction that has so far backed it, ultimately holds.

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