The ma­jor­i­ty of bars across the coun­try re­mained closed yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s warn­ing on Wednes­day that own­ers who fail to com­ply dur­ing the COVID-19 re­sponse risk los­ing their li­cences.

Checks with the heads of var­i­ous po­lice di­vi­sions across the coun­try con­firmed that bars were closed and that they were do­ing fre­quent pa­trols to en­sure this as well.

South­ern Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Wayne Mo­hammed said since Mon­day he and his of­fi­cers had vis­it­ed var­i­ous bars ex­plain­ing the sever­i­ty of the COVID-19 cri­sis and asked them to be re­spon­si­ble.

ACP Nurse, who is in charge of the West­ern and Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sions, said there have been fre­quent pa­trols at the var­i­ous bars to en­sure they re­main close.

“We have been us­ing per­sua­sion more than any­thing else. The sit­u­a­tion to­day is far bet­ter than it was yes­ter­day. I have not had any re­port of bars open­ing to­day,” Nurse said.

While the bars were closed with­in the North East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Robert Phillip said they had to speak to some Chi­nese restau­rants where al­co­hol is sold about lim­it­ing the num­ber of pa­trons in their es­tab­lish­ments.

One promi­nent busi­ness, Anand Low Price Group, has had to close ten of its 19 busi­ness­es due to the Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tives to curb the spread of COVID-19.

“Man­age­ment of the Anand Low Price Group is in full sup­port of the plans made by Dr Kei­th Row­ley and be­lieves that these steps need to be tak­en in or­der to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 virus,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed in an email re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions.

Clos­ing the com­pa­nies in the face of this pan­dem­ic was dif­fi­cult, the com­pa­ny ad­mit­ted, but im­por­tant to re­duce the trans­mis­sion of the virus. Among the busi­ness­es closed were six health and fit­ness gyms, Tantra Pub & Lounge, Play­di­um Game-Room & Restau­rant, The Rig Restau­rant & Lounge and Scream­ers Restau­rant & Lounge.

The ac­counts of all gym mem­bers have been frozen and will re­sume once the all-clear is giv­en to re­open the gyms, it said. The com­pa­ny has al­so re­de­ployed most of its em­ploy­ees at the closed busi­ness­es to its su­per­mar­kets.

“Most em­ploy­ees of the closed busi­ness­es at this time, have been shift­ed to work in the su­per­mar­kets once they were will­ing. Man­age­ment chose to give em­ploy­ees this op­tion so that work­ers would con­tin­ue hav­ing a source of in­come,” the group said.

The com­pa­ny al­so as­sured cus­tomers that there will be no in­crease in prices at its su­per­mar­kets.

“Thus far, the Anand Low Price Group is grate­ful for the de­fer­ral of rental and mort­gage pay­ments for one month and the re­duc­tion of the lend­ing rate of Com­mer­cial banks. We strong­ly be­lieve that change dur­ing this pe­ri­od is in­evitable and nec­es­sary,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed.