The Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT) is as­sur­ing bar pa­trons and mem­bers of the pub­lic that all the nec­es­sary steps have been un­der­tak­en to en­sure all mem­ber­ship out­lets are ful­ly COVID 19 com­pli­ant.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, BOATT re­ports that its mem­ber es­tab­lish­ments have been ful­ly cleaned and san­i­tized in or­der to elim­i­nate and min­i­mize the spread of the Coro­n­avirus.

The As­so­ci­a­tion list­ed sev­er­al of the Health and Safe­ty pro­to­cols which have been im­ple­ment­ed at es­tab­lish­ments, for the pro­tec­tion of staff and pa­trons alike:

1. The in­sti­tu­tion of so­cial dis­tanc­ing reg­u­la­tions for seat­ing at ta­bles which are placed at a min­i­mum of 6 feet apart which will re­sult in no more than 50% ca­pac­i­ty.

2. Manda­to­ry use of Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment such as mask, gloves and face shields by staff.

3. Tem­per­a­ture checks of all staff be­fore they re­port for du­ty and pa­trons up­on en­try.

4. San­i­ti­za­tion sta­tions avail­able at all en­try points and hand san­i­tiz­er avail­able with­in the es­tab­lish­ments.

5. Masks to be worn on en­try & ex­it and while mov­ing around with­in the es­tab­lish­ments. Masks are on­ly to be re­moved if nec­es­sary when seat­ed at a ta­ble in ac­cor­dance with the Min­istry of Health guide­lines.

6. In­creased manda­to­ry san­i­ti­za­tion of all high con­tact ar­eas and sur­faces in­clud­ing door­knobs, coun­ters, ta­bles, chairs, wash­rooms and amuse­ment gam­ing ma­chines dur­ing & af­ter op­er­a­tional hours.

7. Ap­pro­pri­ate sig­nage in­form­ing & re­mind­ing cus­tomers of rules as­so­ci­at­ed with the “New Nor­mal”.

8. Sneeze guards at bar coun­ters for prop­er sep­a­ra­tion of pa­trons and bar staff

9. No seat­ing at bar coun­ters.

10. Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of out­door seat­ing ver­sus in­door seat­ing.

These as­sur­ances and ini­tia­tives from BOATT are the lat­est in its ef­forts to en­cour­age Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er the strin­gency of its re­stric­tions on the sec­tor, which has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“We are very con­cerned about the well­be­ing of the over 20,000 em­ploy­ees as­so­ci­at­ed with our in­dus­try, most of whom have been tem­porar­i­ly laid off as a re­sult of the clo­sure of the bar sec­tor,” BOATT says in its re­lease. “We hope that they can re­turn to work in the short­est pos­si­ble time.”

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so re­it­er­at­ed its po­si­tion that those con­tra­ven­ing the COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions must be held ac­count­able.

“The As­so­ci­a­tion stands firm in its po­si­tion that prop­er ad­her­ence and en­force­ment of the health guide­lines are nec­es­sary at this time in all busi­ness and pub­lic set­tings and would like to urge all bar own­ers to do so,” BOATT said in the re­lease.

It added: “The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so stands firm in its po­si­tion that all busi­ness­es that do not ad­here to the prop­er health guide­lines should feel the full brunt of the law.”