Loyse Vin­cent

Pho­tos of dozens of peo­ple in an ap­par­ent par­ty on No Man’s Land in To­ba­go has at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the po­lice, for pos­si­ble breach­es of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions re­gard­ing COVID-19.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has how­ev­er sug­gest­ed the hands of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) are tied be­cause of where the event oc­curred.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions sur­round­ing im­ages of a large num­ber of peo­ple gath­ered at No Man’s Land in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er con­firmed that he saw the im­ages be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia but he said the im­ages are no dif­fer­ent what oc­curs at oth­er beach­es.

The im­age in ques­tion cap­tured a large group of per­sons as they dis­em­barked from var­i­ous fish­ing boats at No Man’s Land. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that hun­dreds of peo­ple were be­ing shut­tled out to the se­clud­ed beach—which is on­ly ac­ces­si­ble by boat—on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day.

One of the fish­er­men who’s ves­sel was used in the ex­er­cise said peo­ple spent both the days en­gaged in what ap­peared to be par­ty­ing, with mu­sic and large cool­ers. Ac­cord­ing to the eye­wit­ness the fes­tiv­i­ties went on all day, un­in­ter­rupt­ed by the po­lice or mem­ber of the Coast Guard.

“It was a good two days for fish­er­men. We got jobs to take per­sons out on our dinghy at a rate of $50 per head one way and we got con­stant traf­fic, we were busy whole day. The on­ly To­bag­o­ni­ans at this par­ty were the boat­men who did the trans­port­ing.”

The fish­er­man, who is from Buc­coo, said he heard about the op­por­tu­ni­ty from an­oth­er fish­er­man from Crown Point.

Communications officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard Lieutenant Sherron Manswell.

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“There was at least five hun­dred per­sons there, so much that when you look you could not see sand on­ly peo­ple. Cars were parked from the Gib­son Jet­ty all the way out the road so it would be hard to miss and whole day no po­lice or Coast Guard in sight.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed po­lice in To­ba­go and a trust­ed source said po­lice re­spond­ed to re­ports of large gath­er­ings in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing Mt Irvine and Buc­coo. How­ev­er, as it re­lates to No Man’s Land, the of­fi­cer said po­lice vis­it­ed the ac­cess point to the area (Gib­son Jet­ty) around 6.30 pm and “there was very lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Of­fi­cer of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) Lieu­tenant Sher­ron Man­swell said while he saw the im­ages, he was un­able to “ver­i­fy its lo­ca­tion as the TTCG did not re­ceive any re­ports.”

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith al­so con­firmed he saw the im­ages. How­ev­er, he not­ed that No Man’s Land, like Mara­cas Bay or any oth­er beach, is a pub­lic beach.

“It is very dif­fi­cult for the po­lice to act if per­sons are on beach­es be­cause it’s dif­fi­cult for the po­lice to pin­point whether it is the peo­ple are in groups of ten where there are thou­sands of per­sons on beach­es whether its Mara­cas or No Man’s Land.”

He said what the po­lice can take ac­tion on, is the fact that in the pic­ture, peo­ple were not wear­ing masks which he said was a ‘tick­etable’ of­fence.

“Based on what I saw there, a lot of these per­sons were not wear­ing masks and that is a mat­ter of con­cern. We would have pa­trols at that lo­ca­tion and if at any time - same as we have at Mara­cas or any oth­er beach - if per­sons are not wear­ing masks then tick­ets would be is­sued.”

Police Commissioner Gary Griffith.

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The Com­mis­sion­er went on to say that he has di­rect­ed units to be high­ly vis­i­ble and in at­ten­dance in the area and any­one not wear­ing a mask will be is­sued a tick­et and or­dered to dis­perse if found to be breach­ing reg­u­la­tions.

The as­sis­tance of the Coast Guard has al­so been en­list­ed, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said, as No Man’s Land is an area that can­not be eas­i­ly po­liced.

The par­ty comes af­ter con­cerns raised by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley about the num­ber of peo­ple head­ing to To­ba­go, say­ing it was not a free pass to aban­don the safe­guards put in place re­gard­ing COVID-19.

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, in her Christ­mas Day mes­sage, had al­so re­cent­ly crit­i­cised those seek­ing to through and at­tend par­ties.

“And so, in­to the dark­ness that is the self­ish, un­car­ing and, I dare say, down­right doltish be­hav­iour of those ‘zessers’ and ‘wessers’ who can­not do with­out a fete, a beach lime or pa­tro­n­is­ing a bar and who are will­ing to put oth­ers’ lives in jeop­ardy, a light shines bright­ly,” she said.

The Gibson Jetty which is used to access No Man's Land in Tobago. Police say they visited the jetty after getting reports of the party but saw no activity for them to act upon.