Carisa Lee

Down­town Own­ers & Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud says 85 per cent of busi­ness­es in Port-of-Spain re­opened yes­ter­day af­ter over three months of clo­sure.

“There has been a slow but steady and en­cour­ag­ing start to the day’s busi­ness. Peo­ple are com­ing back on­to the street and we are see­ing the re­open­ing of com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing de­liv­er­ies com­ing back to Port-of-Spain and shop­pers com­ing to vis­it var­i­ous busi­ness­es,” he said.

Aboud said the oth­er 15 per cent of busi­ness­es re­mained closed as pend­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween land­lords and ten­ants take place. How­ev­er, he said that may be re­solved soon and more stores may re­open this week.

He said the mem­bers of his as­so­ci­a­tion are of the view that re­gard­less of the cir­cum­stances, life will go on.

From as ear­ly as sev­en yes­ter­day morn­ing, re­tail store work­ers were seen clean­ing and prepar­ing their work­places for re­open­ing.

UA In­vest­ments em­ploy­ee In­dar Kan­hai said it was a day he and his col­leagues were wait­ing for.

“It’s been a long time all the em­ploy­ees here have been at home…we are all elat­ed you know, week af­ter week we will sit and wait at the press con­fer­ence to hear what’s the news on the re­tail sec­tor and fi­nal­ly, he (Pm Row­ley) an­nounced the news,” Kan­hai said.

Mucurapo East Secondary School form 3 student Victoria Marshall tries the fit of a new school blouse at Bradford Mall Henry Street Port-of-Spain yesterday. Secondary Schools are set to open in September for students writing CAPE and CSEC exams.

ANISTO ALVES

He said they are fol­low­ing all health pro­to­cols in­side the store and em­ploy­ees had all been vac­ci­nat­ed be­cause they can­not deal with an­oth­er shut­down.

Low­er down Fred­er­ick Street at Won­der­ful World, an em­ploy­ee said she was hap­py to re­turn be­cause her cash was run­ning out.

“I was pray­ing for this be­cause my rainy day mon­ey was run­ning way low,” she said.

Even cus­tomers were hap­py for em­ploy­ees of the re­tail sec­tor, not­ing they had suf­fered long enough.

An­n­marie Dou­glas, who was wait­ing for De­tour to open, said the re­open­ing came just in time for re­tail work­ers to pur­chase books.

“If they did keep close for the length of time, that would have been re­al hard so I glad they open so peo­ple can come out and get they lil mon­ey,” she said.

She was al­so hap­py to be able to pur­chase a new jer­sey for work.

“Peo­ple on the out­side too who want a lil pants, a lil slip­per or what­ev­er, they could get to buy some­thing now,” she said.

Dou­glas was not the on­ly re­lieved cus­tomer. Oba­di­ah Bates said he had been wait­ing months to pur­chase cloth­ing.

Alicia Fernando shops at UA Investment Store on Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain yesterday, as retail stores where reopened, yesterday.8/16/21

ANISTO ALVES

“I buy some caps here and ear­li­er on I buy some jer­seys and I feel­ing re­al com­fort­able with that. A lil while from now I go­ing across by Hen­ry Street to buy a shoes,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

There was al­so a line at Stan­dards on Hen­ry Street.

“I couldn’t wait,” one woman who had sev­er­al bags in her hands said.