An­na-Lisa Paul

Al­though he had no in­ten­tion of fol­low­ing in the foot­steps as his coun­ter­part in San Fer­nan­do to ini­tial­ly ban street food ven­dors from re­open­ing on Mon­day – Port-of-Spain may­or Joel Mar­tinez said the op­tion will be con­sid­ered if and when the sit­u­a­tion war­rants it.

Fol­low­ing last Sat­ur­day’s me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s – Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley gave fast food out­lets and restau­rants the green light to re­sume op­er­at­ing but on­ly for de­liv­ery and curb­side pick-up.

Mar­tinez said for a late evening/night ven­dor, “Your vend­ing time will be very short be­cause you have to pack up, clean up and get home be­fore 9 o’clock. And the per­son who is com­ing to buy from you will al­so have to do the same thing.”

Mar­tinez added, “My coun­cil has not had to meet on it as yet, to dis­cuss whether it is an is­sue.”

In­di­cat­ing full sup­port for Gov­ern­ment’s call for all to vac­ci­nate be­fore they op­er­ate, the may­or added, “We want to be safe. We want to live to speak about it, and we want to en­sure the coun­try is do­ing the right thing.”

Asked if he would ad­vise the cat­e­go­ry of street-ven­dors to come for­ward and get the vac­cine, he said the ven­dors as­so­ci­a­tion would be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty for their mem­bers to get im­mu­nised.

If mem­bers of the pur­chas­ing pub­lic refuse to ad­here to pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions to so­cial dis­tance from each oth­er, Mar­tinez said, “The virus does not look for any prej­u­dice and we have to look at all the ways to pro­tect our­selves.”

“If the cus­tomers can­not op­er­ate re­spon­si­bly, we will have to take mea­sures to curb the sit­u­a­tion,” he added.

Of­fi­cials from the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion have been en­gag­ing in pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns with burgess­es, ad­vis­ing them of the im­por­tance to get vac­ci­nat­ed as well as the pub­lic health mea­sures that need to be en­forced.

A vis­it to the pop­u­lar Yousef Gy­ros on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, yes­ter­day, saw var­i­ous stages of clean-up tak­ing place.

One of the Venezue­lan mi­grants, who were seen scrub­bing counter tops and floors, and sani­tis­ing freez­ers and stove-tops said, “We feel good af­ter two to three months of clos­ing the coun­try. We feel good as we can go back to work again…go back nor­mal. Trinidad is nice.”

At Wendy’s on the Av­enue, a fe­male work­er was seen scrub­bing the front dri­ve­way while oth­ers were in­side wip­ing down ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture as they pre­pare to re­open on Mon­day.