Lance Mitchell, 63, and Jameela Roberts, 30, ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor at the Port of Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court to­day, charged with drink­ing in pub­lic.

Roberts, who re­sides in San­ta Cruz, was fined $3,000, or in de­fault, she will have to serve four months hard labour. Mitchell, a res­i­dent of San­ta Cruz, was grant­ed $8,000 bail and is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear at the Port of Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court on Sep­tem­ber 7th.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, on Ju­ly 5th, around 5.45 pm, mem­bers of the Port of Spain City Po­lice Task Force were on mo­bile pa­trol along Char­lotte Street. While there, PC Lewis ob­served a man pour­ing a drink in­to a white cup then con­sum­ing it. He ap­proached the man and asked if he was drink­ing al­co­hol, and the man asked for a chance. He was then ar­rest­ed.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, Pc Lewis ob­served a woman drink­ing from a glass bot­tle. He ap­proached the woman and asked if she had been con­sum­ing al­co­hol, and she stat­ed she was just tak­ing a drink. PC Lewis then ar­rest­ed the woman. The man and the woman were both tak­en to the Port of Spain City Po­lice Sta­tion, where they were sub­se­quent­ly charged for the of­fence.