Sando bar owners brace for sales hit, harsh penalties under new bill

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

San Fer­nan­do bar own­ers are warn­ing that pro­posed in­creas­es to the le­gal ages for al­co­hol con­sump­tion, gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use could af­fect sales. They al­so ques­tion the sever­i­ty of the penal­ties busi­ness­es could face for break­ing the new laws.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al bar own­ers in San Fer­nan­do as the Gov­ern­ment moved to amend sev­en pieces of leg­is­la­tion. The pro­pos­als would raise the le­gal age for al­co­hol con­sump­tion from 18 to 21, and the min­i­mum age for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use from 18 to 25.

Un­der the pro­posed changes, any­one who know­ing­ly sells al­co­hol to a per­son un­der 21 could face a 15-year prison sen­tence for a first con­vic­tion. The penal­ty would rise to 20 years for a sec­ond of­fence and 30 years for a third or sub­se­quent of­fence.

Sev­er­al pro­pri­etors ex­pressed con­cern about the penal­ties and the pos­si­ble im­pact on their busi­ness­es.

De­onath Naipaul, own­er of Time and Tide Restau­rant & Bar on Cof­fee Street, said he would have to wait un­til the changes took ef­fect to as­sess their im­pact, as most of his cus­tomers were old­er. How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged that busi­ness­es could be af­fect­ed.

Naipaul had no ob­jec­tion to rais­ing the le­gal age for mar­i­jua­na use, but urged au­thor­i­ties to en­force the law pro­hibit­ing peo­ple from smok­ing mar­i­jua­na in pub­lic.

Cindy Bald­win, own­er of Cin’s Bar & Lounge on Cipero Street, dis­agreed with the pro­posed changes. She said that, amid in­creas­es in liquor li­cence fees and tax­es on gam­ing ma­chines, busi­ness own­ers felt they were not be­ing heard.

“Hon­est­ly, I don’t re­al­ly have any sug­ges­tion. Be­cause I be­lieve the gov­ern­ment will do what­ev­er they want. No mat­ter how the pub­lic feel about it.”

Bald­win said sales could be af­fect­ed be­cause many young peo­ple in­volved in pro­mo­tions and the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try sup­port busi­ness­es late at night. She al­so doubt­ed that rais­ing the age lim­it would de­ter young peo­ple from drink­ing al­co­hol.

Michael Curly, a Trinida­di­an who lives in the Unit­ed States, said the pro­pos­als had both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive as­pects.

Speak­ing at the Land­ing Strip Bar on Cof­fee Street, Curly said, “Is ah give and take.”

How­ev­er, he said peo­ple were con­sid­ered adults at 18 and should be able to make their own de­ci­sions.

San Fer­nan­do Greater Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said young peo­ple might not wel­come the pro­pos­als.

“But the Gov­ern­ment may be right in terms of in­creas­ing the age lim­it; the youths need some dis­ci­pline. There is al­so the ill ef­fects on health and men­tal ca­pac­i­ty when con­sump­tion of these sub­stances are abused sig­nif­i­cant­ly.”

Singh said some busi­ness­es in the en­ter­tain­ment, food and bev­er­age sec­tors, in­clud­ing bars and casi­nos, would op­pose the changes be­cause they could lose sales.

He hoped young peo­ple would not turn to old­er peo­ple or un­scrupu­lous in­di­vid­u­als who might en­cour­age un­der­age drink­ing, gam­bling or mar­i­jua­na use.

On the pro­posed penal­ties, Singh said: “The penal­ties would seem to be se­vere, but maybe the gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion is to en­sure that they’re se­ri­ous about the law and that the per­sons who wish to break the law, that there’s a se­ri­ous penal­ty, fi­nan­cial­ly speak­ing, if they do break the law.”

Busi­ness­es might have to adapt to the changes, he said, adding that oth­er coun­tries had sim­i­lar age lim­its for drink­ing al­co­hol and us­ing mar­i­jua­na.