Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With Christ­mas just one day away, some liquor busi­ness­es in South Trinidad are not in good spir­its, as al­co­hol sales have plum­met­ed un­der steep du­ties.

Cus­tomers told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the price hike had al­so put a damper on their sea­son.

John Seu­radge, third-gen­er­a­tion man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Seu­radge Liquor Store at Prince Al­bert Street, said the fi­nan­cial strain caused by the 100 per cent du­ty in­crease on al­co­hol may force him to con­sid­er shut­ting the doors af­ter more than 90 years in busi­ness.

Not­ing that in the past they of­ten had to hire se­cu­ri­ty to man­age long queues of cus­tomers, he said now cus­tomers were just trick­ling in, and his sales have de­clined by more than 50 per cent.

“The sales have dropped a lot now due to the 100 per cent du­ties on the al­co­hol, it is af­fect­ing it bad­ly. Peo­ple don’t have that ex­tra mon­ey to pur­chase al­co­hol as be­fore. So, it has gone down.”

Cus­tomers were pur­chas­ing beers, Shandy and Mal­ta, Pun­cheon, John­nie Walk­er, Black and White Whiskey, Ab­so­lut Vod­ka, he said, but in much small­er quan­ti­ties.

Not­ing that his fam­i­ly busi­ness has been in ex­is­tence for over 90 years, he said, “We hope that some­thing will change con­cern­ing that high du­ties. If not, soon­er or lat­er, the com­pa­ny might have to close down.”

Cus­tomer Gilbert Agard said he would do any­thing to en­sure he has an en­joy­able Christ­mas, but this year, he would be cut­ting back on al­co­hol pur­chas­es.

“That has im­pact­ed great­ly on me be­cause I can’t buy the amount I would nor­mal­ly buy be­cause not for any rea­son, prices are just go­ing hay­wire,” he said.

At Raj Mi­ni Mart at Sut­ton Street in San Fer­nan­do, own­er Raj Roop­nar­ine agreed that al­co­hol sales had plum­met­ed dras­ti­cal­ly com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

“We are hop­ing for more sales on Christ­mas Eve. We try­ing to keep the price down so that peo­ple would know and come and shop.

“I feel the price should go down a lil more so peo­ple could af­ford to buy.”

Hope­ful that sales would in­crease, he said some peo­ple were even re­quest­ing Bay Rum.

“The fastest sell­er right now is pun­cheon rum, sec­ond White Oak, but then we have a com­pe­ti­tion for af­ford­able al­co­hol, which is cheap, which is Bay Rum.”

He said the price of a bot­tle of Bay Rum is $9.

Er­rol Ram­saran, who op­er­ates The Edge Restau­rant and Bar at Mu­cu­rapo Street, San Fer­nan­do, said sales dropped af­ter the prices in­creased, forc­ing him to re­duce prices to keep his cus­tomers.

He, how­ev­er, said his busi­ness was bare­ly sur­viv­ing and op­er­at­ing at a loss.

“Sales have de­creased ini­tial­ly, then it picked up a lit­tle. For me to re­al­ly keep some cus­tomers, right now I am sell­ing be­low sched­uled price. The sched­uled price for Carib is $13; I am sell­ing it at $12.”

In past years, he said, there would usu­al­ly be a crowd in the bar at this time. How­ev­er, he said, “Peo­ple just com­ing, buy­ing for them­selves and drink­ing for them­selves, not buy­ing a six pack or any­thing like that.”

Cus­tomer James Hur­dle, a re­tired Coast Guard of­fi­cer who was lim­ing at the bar with his friends, said the in­crease was af­fect­ing his pock­et, forc­ing him to cur­tail his al­co­hol con­sump­tion.

“What the au­thor­i­ties could do is low­er down the price, even if it is by a $2...I am an old sailor, I could ah drink a case, but I have to drink about five now,” he said.

Satesh Moonasar, pres­i­dent of the Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, said the in­crease would af­fect bars to vary­ing de­grees de­pend­ing on their lo­ca­tion.

With a 400 per cent rise in the amuse­ment gam­ing tax set to take ef­fect next year, he is hop­ing the Gov­ern­ment will re­duce al­co­hol du­ties to help op­er­a­tors cope.