Samp­son Nan­ton

Bars that do not com­ply with the COVID-19 guide­lines for re­open­ing, will not be sup­plied with al­co­holic prod­ucts from to­day.

This is one of the mea­sures an­nounced by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bev­er­age and Al­co­hol Al­liance (TTBAA) at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, as it seeks to stave off any a re­clo­sure of the in­dus­try.

“The TTBAA, com­prised of 90 man­u­fac­tur­ers, pro­duc­ers, dis­trib­u­tors and mar­keters of al­co­hol in T&T, have tak­en the de­ci­sion that for bars that are non-com­pli­ant as of to­mor­row (Mon­day), the bod­ies that con­sti­tute the TT­BA Al­liance - the likes of the Caribs and Bry­dens and oth­ers—we are go­ing to with­hold de­liv­ery and sup­plies of those en­ti­ties,” TTBAA chair­man Dr Patrick An­toine.

The news con­fer­ence fol­lowed a stern warn­ing by the prime min­is­ter, that the gov­ern­ment would close bars again if re­ports of breach­es con­tin­ued.

Videos cir­cu­lat­ed over the week­end, show­ing bars jam-packed and there were re­ports of peo­ple “hid­ing” in bars af­ter the 10 pm clos­ing time.

“Where bars and bar own­ers con­tin­ue to be non-com­pli­ant, we will sup­port with­out reser­va­tion, ful­ly, the clo­sure of these bars by the State,” An­toine added.

He point­ed out that over 75,000 peo­ple work di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly in the al­co­hol in­dus­try and said that they could not al­low the few er­rant ones to af­fect the many who re­ly on the in­dus­try for their liveli­hoods.

The Bar Own­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (BOA) and the Trinidad Ho­tels, Restau­rants and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (THRTA), were al­so rep­re­sent­ed at yes­ter­day’s news con­fer­ence.

“We can­not en­dure an­oth­er 90 days of a shut­down. That would en­tire­ly con­demn the in­dus­try as we know it,” in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the BOA, Teron Mo­han said.

Ac­cord­ing to him, there are 5,000 bars in T&T, di­rect­ly em­ploy­ing 20,000 peo­ple with as many as 100,000 in­di­rect­ly em­ployed in the in­dus­try. The fi­nan­cial blow of an­oth­er shut­down, he said, would be “fa­tal.”

The spokes­men said such clo­sures would se­vere­ly af­fect the liveli­hoods of the or­di­nary work­ers, adding that this is why they came to­geth­er Sat­ur­day night to agree on some im­me­di­ate mea­sures.

“We are pre­pared not just to talk the talk but to walk the walk,” An­toine said.

That walk in­cludes work­ing close­ly with the po­lice to ad­dress the bad bars, to “nip it in the bud.”

Al­so, as of to­day, a hot­line will be in place to al­low peo­ple to com­plain about those en­ti­ties which are breach­ing the guide­lines.

The hot­line num­ber is 277-7378 or 277-SERV.

The TTBAA will al­so spend mon­ey to help with com­pli­ance.

“We will be sup­port­ing the train­ing mod­ules for the op­er­a­tors and em­ploy­ees by pay­ing for the train­ing of the en­ter­pris­es that in­di­cate that they have a dif­fi­cul­ty,” An­toine said.

He es­ti­mates that be­tween 1,000 and 1,500 bars will ben­e­fit from train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“Every­thing you be­lieved be­fore in re­spect of op­er­at­ing a bar in the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­plete­ly changed,” said pres­i­dent of the THRTA, Bri­an Fron­tin.

“Our call is to the own­ers. The win­dow for com­pli­ance is now ex­treme­ly small and rapid­ly clos­ing with­out a com­plete change in be­hav­iour,” he added.

Bars re­opened last Mon­day and dur­ing the week the gov­ern­ment amend­ed the health reg­u­la­tions to man­date that they could not re­open their doors un­til 8 am, af­ter clos­ing at 10 pm the night be­fore.

The TTBAA, mean­while, was plan­ning last week, to write the gov­ern­ment to ask for bars to open one hour lat­er un­til 11 pm and to al­low those with big­ger floor spaces, the lee­way to ac­com­mo­date more than 25 peo­ple at a time.

That, An­toine said, will not hap­pen now, be­cause of the ac­tions of the er­rant bar op­er­a­tors.