The bar in­dus­try con­tin­ues to count mil­lions in loss­es since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit T&T in 2020. Bars were among the first sec­tors to close and now, in 2021, they are among the last sec­tors to re­open. To­mor­row at least 50 per cent of bars are ex­pect­ed re­open amid a host of re­stric­tions.

Pres­i­dent of the Bar­keep­ers and Own­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT) Satesh Moonasar es­ti­mates the loss­es at $400 mil­lion and de­scribed this pe­ri­od as one of the biggest crises the bar in­dus­try has faced in its his­to­ry in T&T.

He said many bars have been forced to close per­ma­nent­ly leav­ing thou­sands job­less and cre­at­ing hope­less­ness among low­er-in­come peo­ple in the coun­try who earn a liv­ing through this in­dus­try.

"This is a bil­lion-dol­lar in­dus­try. Just look at tax­es alone, and fees such as liquor li­cences, PAYE tax­es, Green Fund Levy tax, gam­ing tax­es and oth­er oblig­a­tions, this adds up to $1 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly. That’s how much the bar in­dus­try con­tributes to the econ­o­my.

"I would say the bar in­dus­try lost rough­ly $400 mil­lion since March 2020 and this is based on clo­sures and re­stric­tions. There were eight months of full busi­ness clo­sure with no in­come."
He said, speak­ing with mem­bers of BOATT, "ac­tu­al loss­es would be things like rent and util­i­ty as these would still have to be paid, al­though bars were closed. As well as ex­pired goods as most com­pa­nies do not take re­turns of ex­pired goods. Al­so, add in the loss of sales and you get that fig­ure."

The Gov­ern­ment will launch its Safe Zone ini­tia­tive in which ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic would be al­lowed to par­take in spe­cif­ic ac­tiv­i­ties on Oc­to­ber 11. 

To­mor­row, gyms, cin­e­mas, dine-in ser­vices at restau­rants, and a host of oth­er en­ter­tain­ment-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties will be­come avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic once they are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19. 

BOATT ex­pects 50 per cent of bars to re­open.

Moonasar said the re­stric­tions on the bar in­dus­try first start­ed in March 2020 as they were one of the first sec­tors to be placed un­der re­stric­tion. They were closed from March 17 to June 21, 2020. From June to Au­gust 16 they were al­lowed to re­open but with re­strict­ed hours. From Au­gust 17 un­til April 29, 2021, bars were then al­lowed to just sell al­co­hol as grab and go. From April 30, 2021, un­til Oc­to­ber 10, bars were closed.

The Rustic Union Bar which has been closed because of COVID-19 in Rio Claro.

CRI­SIS PE­RI­OD AND RE­OPEN­ING

Moonasar said at the start of the pan­dem­ic in 2020 there were about 2,800 reg­is­tered bars in the coun­try.

He es­ti­mates that al­most 40 bars closed per­ma­nent­ly and added that many more bars faced fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ty but the orig­i­nal own­ers sim­ply sold them off to new own­ers.

He al­so es­ti­mates that 4,000 em­ploy­ees of bars lost their jobs since the first re­stric­tions be­gan in 2020.

"This was a very painful pe­ri­od. It will take an­oth­er two to three years for the in­dus­try to re­cu­per­ate from this sit­u­a­tion. Al­though the doors of the bars will be opened on Mon­day, it is still not busi­ness as usu­al."

He ex­plained that even when they restart op­er­a­tions, cus­tomers will not be able to con­sume al­co­hol at bars but they must leave the premis­es with the al­co­hol. How­ev­er, cus­tomers can sit in a bar and have non-al­co­holic drinks. Bars can on­ly op­er­ate at 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty dur­ing open­ing hours. They will al­so be able to re­main open with­in the cur­few hours.

Moonasar al­so said that bar own­ers, em­ploy­ees, and cus­tomers must all be vac­ci­nat­ed in keep­ing with the health reg­u­la­tions.

Cus­tomers can al­so ac­cess gam­ing ma­chines at bars.

He said they are some­what sat­is­fied that the Gov­ern­ment took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion some of their rec­om­men­da­tions how­ev­er, the re­stric­tion of not be­ing able to sell al­co­hol on the com­pound is of "great con­cen" to them.

"Restau­rants’ core busi­ness is din­ing and they have that. Casi­no's core busi­ness is gam­ing and they have that. Bars’ core busi­ness is the con­sump­tion of al­co­hol and we do not have that so, we are still at a dis­ad­van­tage. We’ll con­tin­ue to lob­by the Gov­ern­ment on this is­sue."

BAR OWN­ERS RE­ACT

The Sun­day Guardian spoke to bar own­ers across the coun­try about the re­open­ing and how they have fared dur­ing the dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od.

Freeport

Kay Ma­haraj, who owns a bar in Freeport, is not sure that she will re­open to­mor­row.

Ma­haraj had got­ten in­to the bar busi­ness in 2019, and when the pan­dem­ic hit in ear­ly 2020, she start­ed to lose mon­ey.

She is rent­ing and con­tin­ued to pay rent al­though her busi­ness was closed.

"I had to fork out $150,000 in rent from March 2020 to now in 2021. This came from my per­son­al sav­ings, if I did not do this I would have lost my sav­ings. I on­ly opened my busi­ness in 2019 and one year lat­er the pan­dem­ic hit. I have not been able to start get­ting back any mon­ey for my in­vest­ment since then."

She said the sit­u­a­tion would be "un­pre­dictable" to­mor­row and she is not sure how it would play out.

"I have a re­tail­ers li­cence and not a restau­rant li­cence. All I can sell is al­co­hol and the Gov­ern­ment says we can’t sell to peo­ple to stay and drink at the bar, so why are we open­ing as a safe zone? We can’t make mon­ey buy­ing and sell­ing one beer for peo­ple to grab and go. The on­ly way to make a prof­it is for peo­ple to sit and drink al­co­hol."

She em­ploys four work­ers and said she would have to hire ad­di­tion­al staff to en­sure that peo­ple have their vac­ci­na­tion doc­u­ments.

Ma­haraj can­not see how they can jus­ti­fy the re­open­ing of bars with­out al­low­ing cus­tomers to con­sume al­co­hol at the place of busi­ness.

"Elec­tric­i­ty is $5,000 per bill pe­ri­od, then I have a loan to re­pay and al­so the rent. I al­so have to pay the salaries of em­ploy­ees. My daugh­ter and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers have had to chip in to help me. Once they al­low peo­ple to con­sume al­co­hol at bars then I’ll re­open my busi­ness."

Bar owner Lindsey Whiskey.

Ari­ma

Lind­sey Whiskey, who owns a bar in Ari­ma, is ful­ly pre­pared to re­open.

"We’ll be opened on Mon­day. My staff is vac­ci­nat­ed. This has been the worst ever since I opened my bar six years ago. I have four full-time em­ploy­ees. I was able to sur­vive this rough time based on my sav­ings. I don’t have any oth­er source of in­come on the side.

"In over­head ex­pens­es alone it is up to $100,000 to run a bar like this month­ly. This mon­ey cov­ers stock, staff, and rent. The banks gave us a few months mora­to­ri­um but then there's Courts, Stan­dards and oth­er places call­ing with no re­gard ask­ing for their month­ly pay­ments."

Whiskey has tak­en the stance that al­though they are re­open­ing un­der re­stric­tions, it is bet­ter than noth­ing and he is hap­py to at least be­gin to gen­er­ate some busi­ness.

Rio Claro bar shuts down

Troy Seecha­ran is the own­er of a bar and the prop­er­ty it is on in Rio Claro. It was orig­i­nal­ly a liquor stare and mi­ni-mart and in 2019 he be­gan con­vert­ing it to a bar.

He was brave enough to take the step to open the bar and a restau­rant dur­ing the pan­dem­ic in No­vem­ber 2020 and in the first few months of op­er­a­tion he was gen­er­at­ing mon­ey and build­ing a cus­tomer base in his com­mu­ni­ty.

"We were one out of 15 restau­rants in T&T to be part of the Restau­rant Week do­ing a St Patrick’s Day. We were do­ing pret­ty well even un­der the re­stric­tions. Carib came in and looked at my place and was sup­port­ive. They came here and did pro­mo­tions," he told the Sun­day Guardian.

The busi­ness came to a grind­ing halt when bars were shut down due to re­stric­tions.

"When I heard the Gov­ern­ment spoke about the safe zone and peo­ple can­not drink al­co­hol on the premise I re­alised that it would not be worth it to con­tin­ue. I have to close this busi­ness and move on. I al­so have the grill on the out­side where I sell food but that will not be worth it as peo­ple come in main­ly to buy the al­co­hol and then buy food. We will still lose mon­ey."

He said that he was look­ing to rent out the build­ing to oth­er busi­ness peo­ple who may con­tin­ue with the bar busi­ness or who may use it for an­oth­er pur­pose.

Seecha­ran said he has been strug­gling for the last few months.

"My in­vest­ment in the bar was mon­ey I saved. I spent $160,000 ren­o­vat­ing from the last build­ing to the present struc­ture. It has tak­en a toll on me and my fam­i­ly. My wife re­cent­ly had a ba­by. I am not ashamed to say I am broke now. I have no more mon­ey."