No charges were laid against a bar own­er who re­port­ed­ly failed to pro­duce proof of vac­ci­na­tion on Tues­day de­spite op­er­at­ing as a safe zone. 

The news came from Satesh Moonasar, pres­i­dent of the Bar­keep­ers’ and Own­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT) af­ter dis­cus­sions with the St An­drew/St David Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health (CMOH) Dr Al­lana Quam­i­na-Best yes­ter­day.

“The per­son could not pro­vide the vac­ci­na­tion card at the point in time but they (in­spec­tors) have re­vis­it­ed the lo­ca­tion where the per­son did present their vac­ci­na­tion card and vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus and every­thing was in or­der.

The per­son was vac­ci­nat­ed and ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed so there is no is­sues per­tain­ing to that at this time,” Moonasar told Guardian Me­dia short­ly af­ter speak­ing with Dr Quam­i­na-Best. 

On Wednes­day, Quam­i­na-Best in­di­cat­ed that of the 13 bars in­spect­ed in her coun­ty as part of the safe zone ini­tia­tive, one own­er was un­able to pro­vide proof of vac­ci­na­tion.

The mat­ter, she said, was re­port­ed to the po­lice ser­vice.

Un­der the safe zone reg­u­la­tions, every­one found with­in the bub­ble must be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

Em­ploy­ees who are med­ical­ly un­able to re­ceive a vac­cine must present a med­ical de­fer­ral or ex­emp­tion cer­tifi­cate is­sued through a pub­lic in­sti­tu­tion along with a neg­a­tive PCR test which must be done every two weeks.

Pa­trons who are med­ical­ly un­able to re­ceive a vac­cine are al­so sub­ject to the same cri­te­ria, how­ev­er, their neg­a­tive PCR test re­sult must be with­in 48 hours of be­ing in the safe zone.

They are all re­quired to have their im­mu­ni­sa­tion card and doc­u­ments on their per­son to present to in­spec­tors.

Any breach­es in these will re­sult in a $5,000 fine for pa­trons and a $25,000 fine per breach for the busi­ness.

Af­ter three breach­es, the busi­ness will be pro­hib­it­ed from op­er­at­ing as a Safe Zone. The ini­tia­tive be­gan on Oc­to­ber 11. 

—Rishard Khan