Beach lovers and stake­hold­ers are plead­ing with cit­i­zens to be re­spon­si­ble as re­stric­tions on the pop­u­lar recre­ation ac­tiv­i­ty are lift­ed to­day.

The an­nounce­ment came on Sat­ur­day by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who al­so warned that if there are large gath­er­ings and cas­es spike it, use of this coun­try’s beach­es would be re­strict­ed once again.

The beach­es have been one of the most missed ac­tiv­i­ty by many dur­ing the course of both clo­sures- once in phase one and re­cent­ly dur­ing the sec­ond phase.

Since the out­break of COVID-19 lo­cal­ly, the coun­try has ex­pe­ri­enced a roller­coast­er ride of re­stric­tions to pre­vent its spread. And out of it- a pearl of wis­dom has emerged among many on so­cial me­dia when­ev­er re­stric­tions are loos­ened- “doh *ex­ple­tive* the scene”.

It’s an ap­peal for cit­i­zens to be­have re­spon­si­bly to pre­vent fur­ther out­break of in­fec­tions re­sult­ing in the reim­ple­men­ta­tion of re­stric­tions on an al­ready ex­haust­ed so­ci­ety.

“I hope peo­ple would be cau­tious and not flock to the beach­es to­mor­row (to­day),” Adana Brad­shaw told Guardian Me­dia who spot­ted her vis­it­ing Un­cle Sam’s.

Brad­shaw and her friends vis­it­ed to pur­chase the area’s most pop­u­lar dish- Bake and Shark.

“I don’t think any­one wants to go back to be­ing at home with no ac­cess to beach­es so I hope peo­ple re­al­ly take the time to be cau­tious this time around,” she said.

She an­tic­i­pates that there would be crowds of peo­ple with­in the first few days of the re­open­ing of the beach­es so she would make her vis­it af­ter two weeks.

An­oth­er pa­tron who wished to re­main uniden­ti­fied told Guardian Me­dia she was al­so vis­it­ing with some friends for Bake and Shark to cel­e­brate one of her friends’ re­cent birth­day.

How­ev­er, while she wants to vis­it the beach at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty present to her, she not­ed that she “prob­a­bly won’t go to one of the more pop­u­lat­ed beach­es.”

“I still have that fear of...the com­mu­ni­ty spread. I don’t want to ex­pose my­self un­nec­es­sar­i­ly,” she said.

Own­er of Un­cle Sam’s and Son’s along the bay, Michael Pierre told Guardian Me­dia he an­tic­i­pates to­day’s re­open­ing would bring some crowds at a time which is usu­al­ly slow.

But he too asked cit­i­zens to “let good sense pre­vail” and be re­spon­si­ble to avoid a re­clo­sure of the beach­es.

When the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced the re­open­ing of the beach­es, he urged cit­i­zens to be re­spon­si­ble and to ad­here to the COVID-19 safe­ty pro­to­cols such as mask-wear­ing.

How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Life­guard branch of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) Au­gus­tus Sylvester said life­guards won’t be able to en­force so­cial dis­tanc­ing at the beach or en­sure masks are worn.

He rec­om­mend­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers be sta­tioned along­side the life­guards.

Sylvester al­so said sev­er­al is­sues are fac­ing them which the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty needs to meet with them on.