Eighty five pa­trons who were al­leged­ly caught by po­lice dur­ing a raid at the Res­i­dence Night Club, One Wood­brook Place, St. James, ear­li­er this year, have been charged and are ex­pect­ed to be ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate on Au­gust 30.

A po­lice re­lease said the ac­cused peo­ple were charged via sum­mons fol­low­ing an ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Cpl Pati­no of the St. James Po­lice Sta­tion.

The own­er of the night­club was charged on Jan­u­ary 25 with pro­vid­ing and sell­ing al­co­hol for din­ing cus­tomers, ex­ceed­ing 50 per cent din­ing ser­vices for cus­tomers, be­ing found in a pub­lic place where the num­ber ex­ceed­ed 10 and hav­ing a bar opened af­ter au­tho­rised hours.

Eight oth­er em­ploy­ees were al­so charged with sim­i­lar of­fences.

The mat­ter was ad­journed to Au­gust 30.

The 85 pa­trons will al­so ap­pear be­fore the court on that same date to an­swer to the charge of gath­er­ing in a pub­lic space ex­ceed­ing 10 peo­ple..

At the point of the ar­rests, Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions

stat­ed that:

 Sec­tion 4 (1) (d) of the reg­u­la­tions says it is an of­fence to hold a pub­lic par­ty or pub­lic fete.

 Sec­tion 3 (1) (a) says it is an of­fence for some­one to be found at a pub­lic place where the num­ber of per­sons gath­ered, at any time, ex­ceeds ten;

 Sec­tion 4 (4) (d) says it is an of­fence for a restau­rant, bar, or es­tab­lish­ment, to sell or pro­vide al­co­hol to its in-ser­vice cus­tomers.

On the night of Jan­u­ary 24, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith was alert­ed to a par­ty at the Res­i­dence where more than 100 peo­ple had gath­ered.

Grif­fith then spoke with act­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Kelvern Thomp­son af­ter which an ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed where both the front and back en­trances were blocked by po­lice of­fi­cers.

Po­lice en­tered the es­tab­lish­ment and de­tained all the pa­trons, most of whom live in up­scale ar­eas of north Trinidad.

Most of the pa­trons were placed in the po­lice de­ten­tion bus and tak­en to the St. James Po­lice Sta­tion.

The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Thomp­son and Supt Hen­ry, ASP Baird, In­spec­tor Grant, Sgt Car­mona with field op­er­a­tions by the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and the Ca­nine Branch.