Pe­ter George Jr, the own­er of Trent Restau­rants Ltd, de­scribes the Gov­ern­ment's lat­est move to lift some of the re­stric­tions on in-house din­ing as a “pos­i­tive step.”

In an ad­dress at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in­di­cat­ed that in-house din­ing can re­sume, but at a 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty and no al­co­hol is to be served. He al­so said that no more than ten peo­ple can sit to­geth­er.

“I un­der­stand what the Gov­ern­ment is deal­ing with. I think it is a pos­i­tive step. We had to get the show back on the road and this is a ba­by step in do­ing that,” George said.

He es­ti­mat­ed that 30 to 40 per cent of the rev­enue of a restau­rant comes from the sell­ing of wine and oth­er types of al­co­hol, so not al­low­ing al­co­hol to be sold is still a big set­back.

“I don’t quite un­der­stand the in­abil­i­ty to serve al­co­hol. If you can’t have a glass of wine, I don’t un­der­stand how that moves the nee­dle. How does not hav­ing a glass of wine help in what they set out to achieve?”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so said that food can be served at cin­e­mas, but masks must be put back on af­ter eat­ing.

Derek Chin, own­er of the Movi­eTowne chain, said al­low­ing food to be eat­en in movie the­atres is a step in the right di­rec­tion and they should be able to re­sume sell­ing food by next Wednes­day.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce in a me­dia re­lease said it has not­ed the ac­tions tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment, but they had hoped for more re­stric­tions to be lift­ed.

The cham­ber said it was a chal­leng­ing fi­nan­cial en­vi­ron­ment for many busi­ness­es, and they are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment will tar­get the ap­pro­pri­ate fi­nan­cial sup­port for those tax-com­pli­ant busi­ness­es which can show the de­bil­i­tat­ing im­pact this is hav­ing on them.

The cham­ber al­so rec­om­mend­ed the cre­ation of a com­pli­ance unit to en­sure the strictest ad­her­ence and en­force­ment of the pro­to­cols.

Bar own­ers dis­ap­point­ed

Ter­ron Mo­han, pres­i­dent, Bar own­ers, and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion said he was “dis­ap­point­ed’ that the Gov­ern­ment has again re­fused to lift re­stric­tions on bars.

“We firm­ly be­lieve af­ter our many months of hard work and prepa­ra­tion that the right choice was not made. It goes to show how far be­hind we are.”