Derek Achong

A large group of bar own­ers and op­er­a­tors have threat­ened to sue the State over a re­cent move to re­duce their hours of busi­ness­es un­der on­go­ing COVID-19 pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions. 

In the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT), which is head­ed by in­ter­im pres­i­dent Teron Mo­han, claimed that the change an­nounced soon af­ter such es­tab­lish­ments were al­lowed to re­open late last month was in­her­ent­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry. 

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, which was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the as­so­ci­a­tion is con­tend­ing that the move gave busi­ness­es that op­er­ate as restau­rants/bars an un­fair ad­van­tage, as they are al­lowed to open un­til 10 pm as op­posed to 8 pm for busi­ness­es that are sole­ly con­sid­ered bars.

“The en­forced pre­ma­ture clo­sure is, there­fore in ef­fect, a form of ar­ti­fi­cial so­cio-eco­nom­ic en­gi­neer­ing by the Gov­ern­ment, as it is forc­ing and re-chan­nelling our client’s cus­tomers in­to restau­rants and bars which are owned by big busi­ness­es com­pared to the av­er­age man/woman who owns and op­er­ates a small bar,” at­tor­ney Ganesh Sa­roop said in the let­ter. 

Sa­roop likened the pol­i­cy to an­oth­er dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic which forced the clo­sure of road­side food ven­dors, such as those sell­ing dou­bles, while restau­rants with fixed lo­ca­tions were al­lowed to op­er­ate. 

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so took aim at the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion giv­en by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who claimed that the de­ci­sion was based on in­ci­dents where such es­tab­lish­ments and their pa­trons had ig­nored so­cial dis­tanc­ing guide­lines when the Gov­ern­ment al­lowed bars to re­open for busi­ness. 

“It should be not­ed that there is no law re­gard­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing and in any event, bar own­ers have been ad­vised by BOATT to de­mar­cate ta­bles and chairs in a man­ner that is con­sis­tent with so­cial dis­tanc­ing,” Sa­roop said. 

Sa­roop al­so point­ed out that video footage that was used by Young to jus­ti­fy the small ad­just­ment in open­ing hours came from a restau­rant/bar in cen­tral Trinidad and not a sole bar as con­tend­ed. He al­so ques­tioned the cur­rent va­lid­i­ty of the reg­u­la­tions, as he claimed that the con­di­tions that ex­ist­ed when they were made un­der the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nances of 1940 in March changed. 

“None of these pro­vides grounds that could jus­ti­fy the COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions hav­ing re­gard to the fact that there has nev­er been com­mu­ni­ty spread of the virus in T&T (ie by or amongst per­sons who been phys­i­cal­ly liv­ing in the coun­try since the clo­sure of bor­ders), the bor­ders have been closed since March 2020, and there is am­ple pro­vi­sion as de­scribed above for the manda­to­ry quar­an­ti­ning of per­sons en­ter­ing the coun­try,” Sa­roop said. 

He al­so claimed the reg­u­la­tions are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, as they af­fect his client’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, in­clud­ing the right to the en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty. Sa­roop claimed that such could have been law­ful if it with­stood Par­lia­men­tary scruti­ny.

“None of the reg­u­la­tions faced the Par­lia­men­tary sieve nor sat­is­fied the con­sti­tu­tion­al rigours,” he said. 

Through the law­suit, the as­so­ci­a­tion is seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that the pol­i­cy is null, void and of no le­gal ef­fect. 

Sa­roop gave the par­ties un­til 4 pm to­mor­row to re­spond to the le­gal threat be­fore he files the law­suit. 

The as­so­ci­a­tion is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan SC, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan and Dou­glas Bay­ley.