PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

From Mon­day, bars that op­er­ate as safe zones can wel­come cus­tomers up to 75 per cent ca­pac­i­ty af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced an ease on the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, bar own­ers are still wary of the grey area left be­hind.

Pres­i­dent of the Bar­keep­ers’ and Own­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (BOATT) Satesh Moonasar yes­ter­day said he was grate­ful for the ad­just­ment in the ca­pac­i­ty lev­els for safe zone venues, but is still con­cerned that vic­tim­i­sa­tion of bar op­er­a­tors can oc­cur.

“We did make the call and we have writ­ten to the rel­e­vant min­is­ters call­ing for the 50 per cent to 100 per cent and we are glad to see that things are mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion. But it still re­mains that we are see­ing that 50 per cent to 75 per cent is still up to the of­fi­cers now to de­cide what is ca­pac­i­ty, be­cause there is no clear in­di­ca­tion of what is 50 or 75 per cent ca­pac­i­ty,” Moonasar said in a phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Last week, Moonasar ex­pressed con­cern that some safe zone venues were be­ing al­lowed to flaunt the pub­lic health guide­lines while oth­ers were be­ing pun­ished.

“So we will still be faced with the same prob­lems, we will still be faced with the same is­sues and it is up to the TTPS of­fi­cer to dif­fer­en­ti­ate what is 50 to 75 per cent with no rea­son­able met­ric or way to cal­cu­late,” he said.

He said his group will con­tin­ue to push for 100 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

“Be­cause that is the on­ly de­fin­i­tive way we can cal­cu­late what is what and to stop we are hav­ing with the TTPS where peo­ple are be­ing pun­ished and vic­timised at this time,” said Moonasar, who is al­so call­ing for a phased re­moval of the safe zone mea­sure en­tire­ly.