Rishard Khan

Bar­keep­ers and Oper­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (BOATT) pres­i­dent Satesh Moonasar says bars are be­ing wrong­ful­ly ac­cused of flaunt­ing the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Moonasar ac­knowl­edged that some bar own­ers/op­er­a­tors were in­deed flaunt­ing the cur­rent COVID-19 pro­to­cols and that the as­so­ci­a­tion is work­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to al­le­vi­ate it. How­ev­er, he said in most cas­es, bar own­ers/op­er­a­tors are be­ing wrong­ful­ly ac­cused by the gen­er­al pub­lic “as these es­tab­lish­ments are not clas­si­fied as bars but are ac­tu­al­ly restau­rants.”

“The gen­er­al pub­lic and the me­dia needs to un­der­stand that these es­tab­lish­ments are clas­si­fied based on the type of li­cense they hold and the ser­vices they of­fer. Once you are a hold­er of a spe­cial restau­rant li­cense and serve food, you are not clas­si­fied as a bar, you are clas­si­fied as a restau­rant and the cur­rent Health Or­di­nance al­lows restau­rants to op­er­ate with in-house din­ing at 50% ca­pac­i­ty with no con­sump­tion of al­co­hol,” Moonasar ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he al­so said that restau­rants are us­ing a loop­hole in the sys­tem and serv­ing al­co­hol in dis­pos­able cups, glass­es and teacups. “The gen­er­al pub­lic and me­dia are plac­ing the blame sole­ly on bars wrong­ful­ly,” Moonasar said.

He said be­cause al­co­hol con­sump­tion is al­lowed every­where else in pub­lic spaces, it leaves the TTPS with a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion in terms of en­force­ment, as there is lit­tle to noth­ing that they can legal­ly do to stop this prac­tice.

“The Bar­keep­ers’ and Op­er­a­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go stands firm by its po­si­tion that every­one should have equal op­por­tu­ni­ty and the cur­rent Health Or­di­nance and re­stric­tions are cre­at­ing a big­ger prob­lem than the one we are try­ing to solve. The as­so­ci­a­tion stands ready and will­ing to dis­cuss this very im­por­tant sit­u­a­tion with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers in an ef­fort to en­sure the health and safe­ty of the pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.