Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has de­scribed the re­cent in­ci­dent in­volv­ing the MV Pel­i­can as a mat­ter of le­gal in­ter­pre­ta­tion and said that he has been ad­vised by lawyers not to speak about it.

The event in­volved over 100 pa­trons and ques­tions have arisen about pos­si­ble breach­es in the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

On Wednes­day, jour­nal­ists sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the in­ci­dent from Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh but the Min­is­ter said the mat­ter is com­pli­cat­ed and he has been in­struct­ed not to speak about it.

“I think the is­sue that has been raised is one that needs in­ter­pre­ta­tion and that is why I said the mat­ter is cur­rent­ly be­fore the DPP and that is why I have been ad­vised by the lawyers not to say too much be­cause it is be­fore the DPP and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” he said yes­ter­day at a news con­fer­ence.

Ques­tioned about a let­ter the or­gan­is­er Adri­an Scoon sent to him about the in­tent to host the event, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh said no per­mis­sion was sought from him for Scoon to pro­ceed.

He said this let­ter was to in­form him about the safe zone event.

“The let­ter in­formed me that they were do­ing this so let me clear­ly state, un­der Sec­tion 8 of the pub­lic health rules, once you down­load the (safe zone) poster that you put up, that is all you need to do and you have agreed to op­er­ate as a safe zone,” he said.

“The min­is­ter nor the min­istry does not give per­mis­sion or au­tho­ri­sa­tion to op­er­ate as a safe zone. The let­ter did not ask per­mis­sion, the let­ter in­formed me that they were go­ing to op­er­ate as a safe zone.”

Deyals­ingh cit­ed Reg­u­la­tion 8 mul­ti­ple times when ques­tioned about the in­ci­dent.

While that reg­u­la­tion cir­cum­vents the need for the Min­is­ter’s sign-off for in­di­vid­ual safe zones, it does not give per­mis­sion for a par­ty boat to op­er­ate as one.

“The fol­low­ing busi­ness­es may be open to con­duct op­er­a­tions as safe zones and pro­vide ser­vices to the pub­lic where they meet the re­quire­ments set out in sub-reg­u­la­tion (2): (a) restau­rants; (b) bars; (c) a com­mon gam­ing house, bet­ting pool or of­fice li­censed un­der the Gam­bling and Bet­ting Act; (d) a cin­e­ma or the­atre li­censed un­der the Cin­e­mato­graph Act; (e) a pri­vate mem­bers’ club li­censed un­der the Reg­is­tra­tion of Clubs Act; (f) a the­atre un­der the The­atres and Dance­halls Act; (g) gyms and fit­ness stu­dios; (h) wa­ter­parks; and (i) pub­lic swim­ming pools.”

Reg­u­la­tion 4 (1)(b) al­so pro­hibits par­ty boats from op­er­at­ing.

“For the pur­pos­es of con­trol­ling and pre­vent­ing the spread of the 2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-nCoV), it shall be an of­fense, dur­ing the pe­ri­od spec­i­fied in reg­u­la­tion 19, for any per­son to– (b) op­er­ate a par­ty boat, boat tour or night­club.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Faris Al-Rawi, who penned the reg­u­la­tion, for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on what the con­cern was that need­ed de­lib­er­a­tion by the po­lice.

He said it was not a mat­ter for him to be­come pub­licly in­volved in and the law’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion lies with the DPP and Po­lice Ser­vice.

Scoon’s lawyers is­sued a let­ter to Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob yes­ter­day stat­ing the of­fi­cers mis­in­ter­pret­ed the reg­u­la­tions and that no breach­es were made.

“The ac­tions of the Po­lice on that day were not con­sis­tent with a prop­er in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Covid 19 reg­u­la­tions or oth­er rel­e­vant laws gov­ern­ing the op­er­a­tions of our client’s com­mer­cial un­der­tak­ing,” it said.

“To be clear, our client WAS NOT PRO­VID­ING A “PAR­TY BOAT” EN­TER­TAIN­MENT SER­VICE on the 26th of De­cem­ber 2021, nor has it ever done so since the reg­u­la­tions pro­hibit­ing same were pro­mul­gat­ed by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Health. Our client is the bona fide hold­er of a Spe­cial Restau­rant Li­cence (here­in an­nexed) and, at the said date and time, was op­er­at­ing un­der the aegis of that li­cence.”

It said Scoon de­cid­ed to adapt his busi­ness mod­el “to restart com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty while at the same time op­er­at­ing with­in the per­mis­si­ble stric­tures of the reg­u­la­tions.”

“It is clear that the in­tent and pur­pose of the safe zone con­cept was to re­sus­ci­tate en­ter­tain­ment ser­vices in a lim­it­ed and safe way and there­fore our client’s de­sire to op­er­ate with­in that frame­work can­not be fault­ed or legal­ly im­peached,” it said.

While mem­bers of the pub­lic have ex­pressed con­cern over the at­ten­dees of the event be­ing let go with­out charges be­ing laid, it is not an un­prece­dent­ed move.

In Jan­u­ary, over 100 peo­ple were de­tained at the Res­i­dence Night­club in Wood­brook and sent home for a par­ty in con­tra­ven­tion of the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.

It wasn’t un­til Ju­ly charges were laid via sum­mons against 85 of them and Au­gust 30 be­fore they had their day in court.

In Sep­tem­ber, 27 peo­ple were ex­pect­ed to be ar­rest­ed via sum­mons for an Arou­ca house par­ty dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

For­mer Head of the po­lice le­gal unit, Chris­t­ian Chan­dler, was al­so charged for breach­ing the reg­u­la­tions (among oth­ers) on Sep­tem­ber 22.

The of­fence oc­curred on Au­gust 5.