SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

On Day One of the newest lock-down mea­sures, some food es­tab­lish­ments have moved their op­er­a­tions in­to the street and start­ed of­fer­ing street food, in an ef­fort to re­main in busi­ness.

Al­though the own­ers of these es­tab­lish­ments were hes­i­tant about speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, they did say they are en­cour­ag­ing cus­tomers to call to place their or­ders, to avoid any con­gre­gat­ing.

‘Boss ah Soup’ on Tra­garete Road, Port of Spain was one such busi­ness.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area around noon yes­ter­day, the build­ing where the es­tab­lish­ment is housed was pad­locked.

Out­side, in the rain, were three em­ploy­ees.

They had set up a small ta­ble and placed sev­er­al pots of soup on it. From there, they filled or­ders.

None were will­ing to go in­to de­tails but one did say he could not af­ford to be out of a job for the next month.

He said cus­tomers were be­ing en­cour­aged to place their or­ders by phone or or­der and wait in their cars.

At ‘D Aber­com­bie Cafe’ on Aber­com­bie Street, Port of Spain, where break­fast and lunch­es are usu­al­ly sold, a small ta­ble and a cool­er were placed at the en­trance, with a sign­board ad­ver­tis­ing break­fast and lunch spe­cials.

The own­er of this cafe, who did not want to give her name, said she too could not af­ford to be out of busi­ness for a month.

She said from what un­der­stood, the pur­pose of the lat­est mea­sures were to dis­cour­age any con­gre­ga­tions.

She said she has ad­vised cus­tomers to place or­der on­ly by phone. She said by do­ing this, she has cut out any pos­si­bil­i­ty that cus­tomers might as­sem­ble and put them­selves at risk for con­tract­ing the virus.

The woman said af­ter months of be­ing out of busi­ness last year, she was bare­ly mak­ing ends meet. Al­most on the verge of tears, she said she has a son abroad at uni­ver­si­ty who she al­so needs to sup­port.

On Ari­api­ta Av­enue, street ven­dors were tak­ing ad­van­tage of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s al­lowance for them to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing.

At Has­san Gy­ros, su­per­vi­sor Niki­ta Ju­man said they were grate­ful that they were al­lowed to open.

She said they were al­so do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to stop large crowds from form­ing.

“We have start­ed us­ing the Or­derista app so cus­tomers cam or­der through the app and they get home de­liv­ery and we al­so do call-in or­ders. As of re­cent­ly, we al­so do curb-side pick­up so once cus­tomers call in the or­der, once we can, we go right here and drop off the food for them we are do­ing as best as pos­si­ble in these times, be­cause right now the food in­dus­try is suf­fer­ing, and not just the food in­dus­try but all in­dus­tries but the biggest im­pact is food and bev­er­age,” Ju­man said.

She said she had pre­vi­ous­ly worked in a restau­rant, which she said was al­so fac­ing the brunt of strict lock­down mea­sures.

Lo­cal fran­chise, Roy­al Cas­tle had its mo­bile op­er­a­tion in full swing on Ari­api­ta Av­enue. 

Sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers on pa­trol in the area stopped by to in­struct cus­tomers to so­cial dis­tance and af­ter spend­ing sev­er­al min­utes on site, they left. 

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said his of­fi­cers have been in­struct­ed to treat each sit­u­a­tion on its own mer­its when en­forc­ing the new reg­u­la­tions.

“It is al­ways go­ing to be a case by case ba­sis, to give a state­ment based on a spe­cif­ic ex­am­ple and say whether it is le­gal or not, we wouldn’t do that. The Prime Min­is­ter was very clear yes­ter­day when he said yes­ter­day un­der 133 of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, it gives the po­lice the au­thor­i­ty with the sup­port of the pub­lic health of­fi­cers to en­ter cer­tain prop­er­ties,” Grif­fith said.