Al­most as soon as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the fur­ther eas­ing of COVID-19 re­stric­tions Sat­ur­day, cin­e­ma, gym and casi­no own­ers sprang in­to ac­tion spruc­ing up and prepar­ing their es­tab­lish­ments to open for busi­ness on Mon­day.

Most were hap­py and wel­comed the news.

Al­lan Bha­gan, own­er of the Oa­sis Lounge, on Broad­way said "The no eat­ing and drink­ing, that makes sense. We re­opened the first time af­ter three months of shut­down and we came out with a “Wear Yuh Mask” song be­cause we want­ed peo­ple to wear their masks while play­ing the ma­chines.

"It re­al­ly is a good thing, it opens up the in­dus­try a lit­tle bit which is what we need and we hope peo­ple fol­low the rules.

"We're al­so con­sid­er­ing giv­ing out gloves to our clients, make sure the ma­chines are sani­tised right af­ter use and we will move some ma­chine off the floor to stay with­in the 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty."

Bryan "Rocky" Stowe, CEO of City Gym, on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, said that he wel­comed the long-await­ed news.

He said they were in a po­si­tion to deal with the 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty of clients as they were an­tic­i­pat­ing the news and start­ed prepa­ra­tions, sani­tis­ing and re­pair­ing equip­ment for clients.

Stowe said one of the most im­por­tant fac­tors was that it was an open-air gym and they did not have to wor­ry about the cir­cu­la­tion of pathogens via air con­di­tion­ing cou­pled with reg­u­lar sani­ti­sa­tion min­imised the risk.

Movi­eTowne own­er Derek Chin, how­ev­er, called the move for cin­e­mas to open at 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty with no eat­ing and drink­ing as short­sight­ed. He said cin­e­mas made their prof­its at the con­ces­sion stands, and al­so took away from pa­trons the ex­pe­ri­ence of movie-go­ing.

He said cin­e­ma, restau­rant and bar own­ers had great ex­pec­ta­tions that they had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get the econ­o­my go­ing, but it had been a "tremen­dous set­back."