KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While Gov­ern­ment com­mits to re­open­ing more sec­tors of the econ­o­my as vac­ci­na­tions against COVID-19 in­crease, some busi­ness own­ers are un­sure whether they can re­open and, if they do, sus­tain their busi­ness­es.

Gyms, bars, casi­nos, cin­e­mas, spas, sa­lons and re­tail busi­ness­es have suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant loss­es. Night­clubs were closed for the past 15 months, while some oth­ers suf­fered three pe­ri­ods of shut­down due to Gov­ern­ment-re­stric­tions.

While COVID-19 claimed over 1,000 deaths, Ru­mours Sports Bar in San Fer­nan­do was one of its busi­ness ca­su­al­ties, clos­ing af­ter 13 years. 

“I had no choice. I had to close it be­cause the land­lords want­ed their rent, and I could not af­ford to pay. There was no cash flow, so I sold out all my stuff and used that mon­ey to cov­er my ar­rears,” own­er Marc Sitaram told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day. 

Sitaram said this was the case with sev­er­al oth­er bar own­ers, who suf­fered the di­rect ef­fect of three clo­sures of this sec­tor. It is even hard­er for bar own­ers in Pa­lo Seco and San­ta Flo­ra, where over­all busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty has de­clined since the clo­sure of Petrotrin in 2018.

Sherene Sanchez, the own­er of Stag­gerin Bar, said most res­i­dents worked at Petrotrin, and since its clo­sure, many strug­gled for work. Sanchez said that even when bars were open, the Gov­ern­ment-man­dat­ed take­away po­lice sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed sales.

“My sales had dropped to $400 a day with that buy and go process. If your rent is $5,000 a month or you have work­ers and util­i­ties to pay, you were not mak­ing mon­ey,” Sanchez said. She said that while Carib Brew­ery as­sist­ed bar own­ers by re­fund­ing them for drinks, many bars had cold stock and oth­er items that would have ex­pired. Sanchez tried to di­ver­si­fy by open­ing a spa, but that too closed at the end of April.

Both Sanchez and Sitaram feel that with vac­ci­na­tions in­creas­ing, bars can op­er­ate safe­ly. Sanchez said that she un­der­stands the se­ri­ous­ness of COVID-19 but be­lieves that so­cial dis­tanc­ing, re­strict­ing pa­trons from drink­ing at the counter, of­fer­ing out­door seat­ing to­geth­er with oth­er pub­lic health mea­sures can al­low for a safe op­er­a­tion. Sitaram is un­sure how quick­ly the sec­tor can re­turn to prof­itabil­i­ty.

“A lot of peo­ple might be scep­ti­cal. The youths will come out, but the more ma­ture peo­ple may not with this virus still around.”

For Fa­reeza Man­bodh, she ex­pects slow busi­ness at her Zen Gar­den Spa, along Sut­ton Street, San Fer­nan­do, when this beau­ty sec­tor re­opens. Man­bodh said that many peo­ple lost jobs, and some may not spend on items that were not con­sid­ered es­sen­tial. Nonethe­less, she be­lieves the au­thor­i­ties over­looked spas and sa­loons’ abil­i­ty to op­er­ate safe­ly.

“Even be­fore COVID-19, I al­ways prac­tised safe­ty for my­self and clients. I sani­tise my­self and every­thing be­cause it was part of my train­ing. I even wore masks be­fore this virus,” Man­bodh said.

She said the past three months were tough for this sec­tor as bills keep com­ing, but no one could gen­er­ate an in­come.

“I am halfway vac­ci­nat­ed, and when ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, I will be a lit­tle safer to op­er­ate. I al­ready have my pro­to­cols in place. I op­er­ate by ap­point­ment, on­ly one per­son comes in at a time, I sani­tise from the wash­room through­out, and I wait 30 min­utes be­tween clients.”

Chelsea Ram­nar­ine Singh, di­rec­tor of Anand Low Price Group of Com­pa­nies (ALPG), which owns a chain of su­per­mar­kets, restau­rants, gyms and guest hous­es, says the con­tin­ued clo­sures are caus­ing suf­fer­ing in these busi­ness sec­tors.

File Photo: Workers at Royal Princes Casino, South Park, San Fernando, clean and sanitise the premises.

Kristian De Silva

ALPG’s Liv Nightlife was nev­er al­lowed to re­open since March 2020. How­ev­er, man­age­ment trans­ferred staff to oth­er busi­ness­es with­in the Group. Ram­nar­ine Singh said with the club and gyms still closed, they are is con­tin­u­ous­ly look­ing to find in­no­v­a­tive ways to sur­vive.

How­ev­er, she says it is time to re­open the econ­o­my, es­pe­cial­ly with the de­crease in COVID-19 in­fec­tions.

Ram­nar­ine Singh re­called the large crowd gath­er­ing for South Park Mall’s ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tion, which Anand Low Price Su­per­mar­ket was a part­ner. In the su­per­mar­kets, she said peo­ple were buy­ing more fre­quent­ly in­stead of month­ly as they watch their fi­nances even clos­er. 

“We do think it is time for gyms to re­open be­cause a lot of peo­ple are get­ting un­fit and there is nowhere to ex­er­cise. Al­so, gyms are good for peo­ple’s men­tal health. How­ev­er, I do not think there will be a huge rush when we re­open. It will be a place for peo­ple to be health­i­er and en­cour­age in­creased ac­tive­ness to help boost peo­ple’s im­mune sys­tems in case they get the virus,” Ram­nar­ine Singh said.

She said em­ploy­ees are get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed, and while they are not forc­ing any­one, the Group is en­cour­ag­ing vac­ci­na­tions.

Cham­ber: Busi­ness will re­duce staff

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC), Ki­ran Singh, said that while some busi­ness­es are ready to re­sume, they have al­ready in­di­cat­ed that they will cut staff in half. Singh said busi­ness­es do not ex­pect sales to boom in the short term, and what­ev­er prof­its they make must be al­lo­cat­ed wise­ly to cov­er all ex­pens­es in­curred. He said they could on­ly des­ig­nate a small por­tion to work­ers’ salaries be­cause big-tick­et items such as rents and util­i­ty rates are just as im­por­tant. Fur­ther­more, over 50 per cent of GS­FCC’s mem­ber­ship ex­pressed con­cern that when Gov­ern­ment fi­nal­ly gives the green light, they may not be able to re­sume. The ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods of clo­sure over the past 15 months have se­vere­ly de­plet­ed their sav­ings.

“Mem­bers can no longer fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port their fur­loughed staff as they had done dur­ing the first lock­down. While gov­ern­ment sup­port was ev­i­dent, un­for­tu­nate­ly, it was not suf­fi­cient to meet the ba­sic needs of the many thou­sands of work­ers,” Singh said. Al­though all man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies were al­lowed to re­open last week, Singh said the sec­tor has not yet ex­pe­ri­enced a re­turn to 100 per cent pro­duc­tion. A pre­lim­i­nary sur­vey re­vealed that de­mand re­mains low for goods that com­prise the non-es­sen­tial sub-sec­tor.

“Some fac­to­ries, and by ex­ten­sion em­ploy­ment, con­tin­ue to re­main idle un­til such time that the re­tail sec­tor is al­lowed to en­gage in com­merce. For ex­am­ple, mat­tress­es are man­u­fac­tured lo­cal­ly, but with fur­ni­ture stores re­main­ing close, there is sim­ply no de­mand for such prod­ucts.” He said the restau­rant in­dus­try is re­turn­ing to some lev­el of busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, the main chal­lenge faced by this sec­tor is the con­tin­ued clo­sure of the re­tail busi­ness­es.

“Al­most 100 per cent of food es­tab­lish­ments with­in the street malls and mega-malls re­main close. It is due pri­mar­i­ly to the fact that re­tail­ers can­not open their doors. Thou­sands of em­ploy­ees with­in the restau­rant sec­tor re­main forced to stay at home.” He said the mon­ey sup­ply is se­vere­ly stunt­ed in the lo­cal econ­o­my and con­tin­ues to have a neg­a­tive mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect. Mean­while, re­tail­ers con­tin­ue to plead with Gov­ern­ment for ease of re­stric­tions, es­pe­cial­ly as mass vac­ci­na­tion dri­ves are cur­rent­ly un­der­way.