SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Al­though there have been mul­ti­ple warn­ings against Old Year’s night par­ties, one pop­u­lar Port-of-Spain ho­tel ad­ver­tised a ‘mid­night fare and buf­fet’ for last night, prompt­ing con­dem­na­tion from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Screen­shots of the post ad­ver­tis­ing the event at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, list­ed the de­tails as “Cel­e­brate the New Year on our Wa­ter­front Ter­race and en­joy our tan­ta­liz­ing dish­es with fam­i­ly and friends.”

The ad­ver­tise­ment list­ed the food avail­able, in­clud­ing a ‘mid­night fare buf­fet’ of corn soup and dou­bles. A live count­down to the New Year was al­so in­clud­ed. The list­ed price was TT$495.

But yes­ter­day morn­ing, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is­sued a state­ment quot­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith as warn­ing against mid­night count­downs at ho­tels, bars and oth­er es­tab­lish­ments.

“The CoP is re­mind­ing the own­ers and op­er­a­tors of these es­tab­lish­ments that the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions state very clear­ly that these places must close at 10 pm,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Grif­fith was quot­ed as say­ing, “Those places which are open­ly ad­ver­tis­ing their events for tonight, please be ad­vised that the TTPS will be vis­it­ing you. I have no­ticed that in one case, a ho­tel has ad­ver­tised to the pub­lic that per­sons can ring in the new year at the wa­ter­front. There is an­oth­er case where a restau­rant has ad­ver­tised that pa­trons can have a qui­et din­ner be­fore the count­down be­gins.”

Grif­fith said his of­fi­cers would have been out in full force, en­sur­ing the pub­lic did not flaunt the Pub­lic Health Guide­lines and cause an in­crease in COVID-19 cas­es.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the ho­tel us­ing the num­ber list­ed in the ad­ver­tise­ment yes­ter­day and en­quired about the event.

A staff mem­ber who an­swered the phone said the event was ‘sold out.’

At­tempts to speak to the ho­tel’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer were un­suc­cess­ful be­cause when the call was trans­ferred to the of­fi­cer’s of­fice, it was not an­swered.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the ho­tel, there seemed to be lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty tak­ing place in the out­side seat­ing area of the restau­rant.

One man ap­proached our news team out­side the ho­tel grounds, ask­ing that they re­frain from tak­ing footage of any guests or staff. The man, who said he worked with the ho­tel’s se­cu­ri­ty, de­nied there was any event card­ed for last night.

When he was shown a screen­shot of the ad­ver­tise­ment, the man said he did not know where it came from. He de­clined to say any­thing else.