Playa del Carmen Removes Over 250 Street Vendors From Downtown in Six Months

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — More than 250 street vendors have been removed from downtown Playa del Carmen over the past six months, according to municipal officials.

Julián Lara, head of the Municipal Inspection Department, said 100 vendors were removed from Fifth Avenue alone, while another 150 were cleared from the rest of the downtown area.

Lara said the removals were carried out through dialogue with vendor unions, following instructions from the mayor to avoid confrontations.

“The tourist area looks much clearer and more orderly now,” Lara said. “The mayor’s instructions were to generate a strategy through dialogue, without confrontations. I think we’ve had good results. More adjustments are coming.”

He added that the municipal government’s priority is to keep the tourist zone orderly.

Separately, Lara said the process to revoke more than 1,500 vendor permits — allegedly issued irregularly by the previous administration — is nearly complete. After the cancellations, the registry of regularized street vendors will stand at 1,800, a reduction of more than 40%.

“This allows for the reordering of Fifth Avenue, improvement of the urban image, and above all, a level playing field for formal merchants who rightly complain about unfair competition,” Lara said.