Since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic Ja­cob Wal­lace (not his re­al name) has at­tend­ed three il­le­gal par­ties, or as they are called, “Zess­er par­ties” or "Cur­few par­ties".

“It’s de­pen­dent on where it is be­ing host­ed and who is host­ing it,” he said.

The term Zess­er par­ty has been linked to il­le­gal limes or par­ties held dur­ing a pan­dem­ic in ar­eas along the east-west Cor­ri­dor, Cen­tral etc, where laws pro­hib­it so­cial­is­ing in large crowds or be­ing out af­ter the es­tab­lished hours set for the cur­few. They have al­so been re­ferred to as Wess­er par­ties (held in up­scale ar­eas in the West) or Fan­ta­sy Wed­dings.

Wal­lace, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said he was obe­di­ent at the be­gin­ning of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and fol­lowed all the pub­lic health mea­sures but even­tu­al­ly got fed up.

“Be­ing in­doors be­came en­tire­ly bor­ing, so yeah, I did be­come en­tire­ly stressed out, you know. Just look­ing at these walls all the time, it was get­ting to me,” he ex­plained.

Ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, he was not wor­ried about con­tract­ing COVID-19 even though many of the over one hun­dred peo­ple he par­tied with were not wear­ing masks or so­cial­ly dis­tanced.

“Ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple wasn’t wear­ing mask, I wore one at one point but when I start­ed drink­ing and the al­co­hol low­ered my in­hi­bi­tion I just took it off,” he said.

The par­ties, which were all host­ed in east Trinidad had no po­lice in­ter­ven­tion. Wal­lace said he be­lieves it’s be­cause of con­nec­tions be­tween the host and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“They al­low them,” he claimed.

But, Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said once po­lice of­fi­cers are in­volved in any il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty they can be charged.

He ad­mit­ted that the pub­lic ver­sus pri­vate ar­gu­ment held some of­fi­cers back from raid­ing some events but that had now been cleared up.

“I al­so know that there may be col­lu­sion in re­la­tion to some po­lice of­fi­cers who may sup­port those things, we al­ways have that hap­pen­ing, okay. But when we find out we in­ves­ti­gate and take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion,” he said.

Ja­cob said if a po­lice of­fi­cer failed to re­port such an event they can be charged for omis­sion to act and if they par­tic­i­pate or or­gan­ise such event they can be charged for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

“When things hap­pen we fo­cus on the rogue el­e­ments in the po­lice ser­vice, yes, be­cause they have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to up­hold the law. But what about the cit­i­zens?” he ques­tioned.

In the last 18 months, the po­lice cracked down on sev­er­al Zess­er par­ties across the coun­try. Some head­lines read: “250 de­tained as TTPS raids Zess­er par­ty in Cen­tral;” “To­ba­go cops to crack down on vil­la fetes as COVID cas­es rise;” 44 ar­rest­ed at 'Zess­er' par­ty in La Hor­quet­ta. They ac­com­pa­nied pho­tos or videos of pa­trons spread out on the ground af­ter the po­lice raid.

The TTPS was un­able to pro­vide Guardian Me­dia with sta­tis­tics on the num­ber of Zess­er par­ties raid­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith, when con­tact­ed a few weeks ago, said the TTPS was en­trust­ed with the job of en­forc­ing the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions and to en­sure that peo­ple stay with­in the law, but they can­not be every­where.

“So we de­pend on our slo­gan, 'See Some­thing, Say Some­thing'. We have re­ceived many calls to our Op­er­a­tions Com­mand Cen­tre where we re­spond­ed and caught peo­ple break­ing the law,” Grif­fith said via What­sApp.

He said they have re­spond­ed on many oc­ca­sions where peo­ple have been in­volved in Cur­few par­ties, Zess­er par­ties, and in one case, an in­door par­ty where sev­er­al young peo­ple from in­flu­en­tial fam­i­lies were found par­ty­ing.

Po­lice raid­ed more than one Zess­er par­ty at a house in Re­al Spring, Val­sayn, dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“Main­ly the peo­ple that will host the par­ties are lo­cals but the at­ten­dees would be lo­cals along­side a lot of Span­ish,” Wal­lace had said.

Grif­fith said in many cas­es, there were the is­sues of no masks, no so­cial dis­tanc­ing and con­gre­gat­ing in large num­bers. He said the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the spread of COVID-19 was re­al in these places.

One bar own­er, who al­so asked to re­main anony­mous, said while some peo­ple host these par­ties for the “vibes”, oth­ers take the risk to keep fi­nan­cial­ly afloat.

“Things was slow,” he said.

Since the first set of re­stric­tions in April 2020, the Bar­keep­ers & Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion had been com­plain­ing about slow sales and clam­our­ing for longer hours. They said many bars couldn’t re­open.

In No­vem­ber 2020, Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $30 mil­lion to bail out restau­rant and bar em­ploy­ees and self-em­ployed peo­ple.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the re­open­ing of some places and cre­at­ed safe zones for vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple. From Oc­to­ber 11, cin­e­mas and the­atres, casi­nos and bet­ting shops, bars and restau­rants, and gyms and fit­ness cen­tres/stu­dios were al­lowed to re­open with the cre­ation of these safe zones. The own­ers of these es­tab­lish­ments are to en­sure all their staff are vac­ci­nat­ed.

Psy­chi­a­trist speaks

Psy­chi­a­trist Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh said Gov­ern­ment’s bub­ble idea will give peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the youth, some re­lease af­ter months of re­stric­tion.

“With the youth...now they have reached a lev­el of frus­tra­tion where you have to be very cau­tious, you have to keep re­mind­ing them of the sit­u­a­tion, so you have to put it to them that you have that ba­by step they could make be­fore they have full open­ing,” he said.

But he said there will al­ways be those who will try to flout the law, be­lieve noth­ing will hap­pen to them and will not lis­ten to the Gov­ern­ment. It’s why he was nev­er sur­prised when news of a Zess­er raid came up.

“Re­mem­ber, we are so­cial be­ings and we have the need to in­ter­act with oth­er per­sons”, he said.

Deyals­ingh said il­le­gal gath­er­ings took place in oth­er cul­tures (South Africa, Eng­land) as well and it’s be­cause peo­ple have that need to have that so­cial re­lease, main­ly young peo­ple who feel in­vin­ci­ble, 'Young and strong',” he ex­plained.

He said he feels sor­ry for them.

“This girl was al­ways plan­ning her 16th birth­day par­ty for years and she now missed out on her par­ty so this was a big thing for her life, so not hav­ing that event caused her to go in­to a de­pressed state… she ac­tu­al­ly start­ed to self-harm…so you do have in­di­vid­u­als who are tak­ing it in a lev­el,” Dr Deyals­ingh ex­plained.

Health of­fi­cials in this coun­try ac­knowl­edge these cir­cum­stances and con­tin­ue to beg cit­i­zens not to con­gre­gate, es­pe­cial­ly now with the Delta vari­ant amongst the pop­u­la­tion.

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh was “deeply con­cerned” about the so­cial gath­er­ing dur­ing the Re­pub­lic Day long week­end.

“Be­cause peo­ple are tired and hu­man na­ture is such that we want a re­lease we want to ex­press our­selves, we ap­pre­ci­ate that…"

But "the ten­ta­cles of the virus goes in­to every com­mu­ni­ty,” he added.

Cit­i­zens speak

Guardian Me­dia asked some cit­i­zens if they would con­sid­er go­ing to a Zess­er par­ty now.

One man said he wouldn’t go even if it was le­gal as his fam­i­ly’s safe­ty was more im­por­tant.

Two oth­er peo­ple said they would at­tend a fam­i­ly get to­geth­er un­der low or en­ter­tain a small group of friends, but would not at­tend a Zess­er par­ty.

Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed said now was not the time to take such risks. She said the con­se­quences of these be­hav­iours (peo­ple gath­er­ing at il­le­gal par­ties) can cause an­oth­er wave with the more con­ta­gious Delta vari­ant and put this coun­try back in­to an­oth­er lock­down, if num­bers spike.

The med­ical doc­tor said it was dis­ap­point­ing that these Zess­er par­ties are held with at­ten­dees not ful­ly grasp­ing the lev­el of risk they are plac­ing them­selves and their loved ones in.

Since the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions took ef­fect af­ter cas­es of COVID-19 be­gan to climb lo­cal­ly, there have been nu­mer­ous busts and ar­rests made by po­lice of­fi­cers of peo­ple at­tend­ing par­ties.

These par­ties which usu­al­ly see more than ten peo­ple in at­ten­dance have no so­cial dis­tanc­ing and the par­ty­go­ers do not even wear masks.

The par­ties, peo­ple de­tained

While the ex­act num­ber of peo­ple ar­rest­ed and charged by the TTPS for be­ing at these Zess­er par­ties is not known, based on the busts which have been pub­li­cised, close to 500 peo­ple have been charged.

The par­ties:

250 peo­ple de­tained at a Zess­er par­ty in Ca­roni in No­vem­ber 2020

32 ar­rest­ed at a Zess­er par­ty in Val­sayn on Au­gust 18, 2020

100 de­tained at Res­i­dence Restau­rant and Bar in Jan­u­ary 2021

26 ar­rest­ed at a Zess­er par­ty in Val­sayn on May 31, 2020

51 ar­rest­ed at a Zess­er par­ty in Val­sayn on Au­gust 15, 2021

14 de­tained at a house par­ty in St Au­gus­tine in Sep­tem­ber 2021

*Un­der reg­u­la­tions of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, af­ter 250 peo­ple were held at the Zess­er par­ty in Ca­roni, Grif­fith stat­ed that all the at­ten­dees would be charged on the on­go­ing Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which pre­clude gath­er­ings of more than ten peo­ple and pub­lic fetes.

*Para­graph 4 (d) of the Pub­lic Heath Coro­n­avirus Leg­is­la­tion states that when peo­ple turn their pri­vate prop­er­ty in­to a pub­lic area to hold pub­lic par­ties or pub­lic fetes they are in breach of the said reg­u­la­tion.

*The reg­u­la­tion pro­hibits groups from gath­er­ing in ex­cess of ten peo­ple. Fail­ure to do so can see peo­ple face fines of up to $50,000.

Those de­tained are usu­al­ly charged by way of sum­mons.