Mem­bers of the Bar­keep­ers & Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion Trinidad & To­ba­go (BOATT) would be protest­ing in front of the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice, to­day Thurs­day 9th Ju­ly 2020, and al­so would be host­ing a press con­fer­ence there for 11 a.m.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued by the As­so­ci­a­tion, which is head­ed by in­ter­im pres­i­dent Teron Mo­han, the protest ac­tion and press con­fer­ence are in­tend­ed to high­light the is­sues be­ing faced by bar own­ers, as well as their im­pend­ing le­gal ac­tion against the State.

A pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter was sent re­cent­ly to Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al by lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the Bar­keep­ers & Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT).

Bar own­ers want to sue the State over a re­cent move to re­duce their hours of busi­ness­es un­der on­go­ing COVID-19 pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions. They ar­gue that the change, an­nounced soon af­ter such es­tab­lish­ments were al­lowed to re­open late last month, was in­her­ent­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry.

BOATT says it re­ceived per­mis­sion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for on­ly 25 pro­tes­tors to­day, and it states would abide with his ap­proval, al­though per­mis­sion was sought for 300 pro­tes­tors.