Business groups raise concern over proposed age-limit Bill

An­drea Perez-Sobers

& Jesse Ramdeo 

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bev­er­age Al­co­hol Al­liance are call­ing for the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to raise the le­gal age for al­co­hol con­sump­tion to be put on hold, with wider con­sul­ta­tion be­fore Par­lia­ment pro­ceeds.

The two or­gan­i­sa­tions are urg­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee to ex­am­ine the ev­i­dence sur­round­ing the pro­posed age thresh­old, penal­ties and en­force­ment ca­pac­i­ty, as well as pos­si­ble un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences.

The two or­gan­i­sa­tions are among sev­er­al busi­ness groups across the re­tail, en­ter­tain­ment and gam­ing sec­tors rais­ing ques­tions about the prac­ti­cal im­pli­ca­tions of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion that would in­crease the le­gal age for al­co­hol and to­bac­co from 18 to 21, while rais­ing the min­i­mum age for gam­bling and cannabis to 25.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment will bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to­day seek­ing to amend sev­er­al laws gov­ern­ing dan­ger­ous drugs, al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling.

The pro­posed Bill, ti­tled “An Act to amend the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, Chap. 11:25, the Reg­is­tra­tion of Clubs Act, Chap. 21:01, the To­bac­co Con­trol Act, Chap. 30:04, the Chil­dren Act, Chap. 46:01, the Liquor Li­cences Act, Chap. 84:10, the Gam­bling (Gam­ing and Bet­ting) Con­trol Act, 2021 (Act No. 8 of 2021) and the Cannabis Con­trol Act, 2022 (Act No. 10 of 2022),” is ex­pect­ed to in­tro­duce sig­nif­i­cant changes to the ex­ist­ing le­gal age thresh­olds.

In a joint state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the TT Cham­ber—the coun­try’s largest busi­ness group- and the TTBAA said they are par­tic­u­lar­ly urg­ing scruti­ny of the po­ten­tial for the leg­is­la­tion to dri­ve some young peo­ple to­wards “un­reg­u­lat­ed or il­lic­it sources of al­co­hol.”

The groups said: “Mea­sures of this sig­nif­i­cance would ben­e­fit from be­ing con­sid­ered along­side the com­plet­ed Na­tion­al Al­co­hol Pol­i­cy and in­formed by the na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion process fore­shad­owed by the Gov­ern­ment.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tions stressed that they sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s ob­jec­tive of pro­tect­ing young peo­ple from un­der­age and haz­ardous drink­ing.

The two groups al­so raised con­cerns about pro­vi­sions af­fect­ing adults aged 18 to 20, in­clud­ing the na­ture and pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of as­so­ci­at­ed penal­ties. The TT Cham­ber and TTBAA al­so sup­port strong, well-en­forced le­gal pur­chase-age laws and said they are pre­pared to im­ple­ment manda­to­ry ID ver­i­fi­ca­tion, re­tail­er train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion across the li­censed trade, re­gard­less of the age ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mined by Par­lia­ment.

They said a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee would give “stake­hold­ers, ex­perts and pol­i­cy­mak­ers” an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­am­ine the avail­able ev­i­dence and as­sess the prac­ti­cal im­pli­ca­tions of the pro­posed mea­sures.

“A struc­tured, ev­i­dence-based process can help en­sure that the fi­nal leg­is­la­tion is prac­ti­cal, pro­por­tion­ate and ef­fec­tive,” the or­gan­i­sa­tions said.

The groups said they are pre­pared to pro­vide Par­lia­ment with com­par­a­tive ev­i­dence and da­ta from oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions to help iden­ti­fy ap­proach­es that are ef­fec­tive and work­able in T&T.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), Kevin Kissoon, said the as­so­ci­a­tion ac­knowl­edges the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to strength­en safe­guards around age-re­strict­ed prod­ucts.

But he said mov­ing the age from 18 to 21 would nat­u­ral­ly re­move a seg­ment of ex­ist­ing cus­tomers from the mar­ket.

“Rais­ing the min­i­mum age from 18 to 21 would nat­u­ral­ly re­move a seg­ment of ex­ist­ing cus­tomers from the mar­ket, al­though the ex­tent of the im­pact on sales would de­pend re­al­ly on con­sumer be­hav­iour.” Kissoon said su­per­mar­kets al­ready have mea­sures in place to ver­i­fy cus­tomers’ ages, with cashiers trained to re­quest iden­ti­fi­ca­tion when nec­es­sary.

“The pro­posed changes would re­move some of the dis­cre­tion cur­rent­ly in­volved and there­fore make clear pro­ce­dures and train­ing for em­ploy­ees even more im­por­tant.”

Kissoon said an­oth­er area re­quir­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion is the po­si­tion of em­ploy­ees who them­selves fall with­in the new age brack­et.

He said this is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant to cashiers, bag­gers and sea­son­al or ap­pren­tice em­ploy­ees who may be in­volved in han­dling or sell­ing age-re­strict­ed prod­ucts.

The On­line Gam­ing Agents’ As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (OGAATT) al­so ex­pressed con­cerns over the pro­posed in­crease in the gam­bling age from 18 to 25.

As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Dean Per­sad said the or­gan­i­sa­tion rep­re­sents more than 1,200 Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board agents and that the change would re­move a sig­nif­i­cant seg­ment of their ex­ist­ing cus­tomer base.

Per­sad said the re­duc­tion in cus­tomers could af­fect the in­come of agents and rev­enue gen­er­at­ed through le­gal gam­bling.

He al­so ques­tioned how the pro­posed law would be en­forced, par­tic­u­lar­ly when agents are ex­pect­ed to de­ter­mine whether a cus­tomer is un­der 25.

“You would not know the age of some­body by look­ing at them.”

Per­sad said he was al­so con­cerned about the po­ten­tial im­pact of the re­stric­tions on le­gal op­er­a­tors and whether some cus­tomers could mi­grate to il­le­gal gam­bling.

He ar­gued that age re­stric­tions alone will not re­solve the wider prob­lems as­so­ci­at­ed with gam­bling. “I don’t think this is go­ing to solve the prob­lem.”

Per­sad called for con­sul­ta­tion with the sec­tor and said the as­so­ci­a­tion wants an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with Gov­ern­ment.

He al­so asked for a meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­cuss pos­si­ble al­ter­na­tives and mea­sures to ad­dress il­le­gal gam­bling.

And the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) said it is con­cerned about the po­ten­tial im­pact of the pro­posed al­co­hol age in­crease on the events in­dus­try.

“A change from 18 to 21 could have sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for parts of the events sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly events with younger adult au­di­ences, all-in­clu­sive events and Car­ni­val bands.”

How­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion said it does not cur­rent­ly have ver­i­fied in­dus­try-wide da­ta show­ing what per­cent­age of pa­trons fall be­tween 18 and 20. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion said the im­pact would al­so vary de­pend­ing on the type of event and its main con­cern is im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“There needs to be clar­i­ty on the dis­tinc­tion be­tween at­tend­ing an event and pur­chas­ing or con­sum­ing al­co­hol, par­tic­u­lar­ly at fam­i­ly con­certs, fes­ti­vals and oth­er mixed-age events.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it al­so want­ed clar­i­ty on who would have re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for age ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

“There al­so needs to be clar­i­ty on who car­ries re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for age ver­i­fi­ca­tion among pro­mot­ers, venues, se­cu­ri­ty providers, tick­et­ing com­pa­nies and al­co­hol ven­dors. What­ev­er sys­tem is re­quired must be work­able at events in­volv­ing thou­sands of pa­trons.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion has called for con­sul­ta­tion with af­fect­ed in­dus­tries and an ap­pro­pri­ate tran­si­tion pe­ri­od be­fore ma­jor reg­u­la­to­ry changes take ef­fect.

“De­pend­ing on the scope of a change, 12 to 18 months should be con­sid­ered, par­tic­u­lar­ly where pro­mot­ers, Car­ni­val bands and sup­pli­ers have al­ready sold pack­ages, en­tered con­tracts or in­vest­ed based on the ex­ist­ing rules.”

The TTPA added that the events in­dus­try is pre­pared to com­ply with the law, but said pro­mot­ers need clear guid­ance and suf­fi­cient time to im­ple­ment any new re­quire­ments.