An­na-Lisa Paul

The de­ci­sion tak­en by the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of T&T one week ago to refuse en­try to peo­ple whose un­der­wear was ex­posed has been met favourably by the pub­lic and does not con­tra­vene any law.Ac­cord­ing to ASP Joanne Archie, the de­ci­sion by the own­ers and op­er­a­tors of the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, St Ann's, to stop and even evict peo­ple whose un­der­wear was ex­posed, was a pri­vate pol­i­cy de­ci­sion.

Asked if the man­agers had bro­ken any law when they in­tro­duced this pol­i­cy, Archie said: "Not that I am aware of."Archie an­swered the ques­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day's week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety Gupte Lutch­me­di­al is stand­ing by the de­ci­sion to en­force a strict dress code for pa­trons.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Lutch­me­di­al ex­plained that al­though they re­ceive a gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion, the zoo is pri­vate­ly owned and run by a board of di­rec­tors who set the rules.Stress­ing that a dress code had been in­tro­duced in 1952 when the zoo was first opened, Lutch­me­di­al said: "This is like a school and can be con­sid­ered a pub­lic place, and we too have rules and reg­u­la­tions. We re­serve the right to ad­mit en­try to any­one who is bare­back, dressed in skimpy clothes and whose un­der­wear is ex­posed."

The de­ci­sion to ban peo­ple wear­ing "bag­gy or sag­gy" pants is sim­i­lar to the one tak­en in 2007 when a strict no-smok­ing pol­i­cy was im­ple­ment­ed.Lutch­me­di­al said just like in that in­stance they took that de­ci­sion and this new one af­ter peo­ple start­ed com­plain­ing through the zoo's sug­ges­tion box about the stan­dards be­ing set, as chil­dren were present every­day.He re­vealed that out of 28 com­plaints re­ceived in Jan­u­ary, 16 dealt with the is­sue of ex­posed un­der­wear.

Lutch­me­di­al said this prompt­ed the board to re­view its dress code pol­i­cy, with a view to en­forc­ing stricter penal­ties.Be­fore en­ter­ing the zoo, pa­trons are ad­vised to fix their at­tire and if found to be ex­pos­ing their un­der­wear af­ter be­ing ad­mit­ted, Lutch­me­di­al said, ever-vig­i­lant se­cu­ri­ty guards will es­cort the per­son out and they will be re­fund­ed their mon­ey.

Fail­ure to com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions will re­sult in peo­ple be­ing barred from en­ter­ing the fa­cil­i­ty."The dress code was al­ways there but it was slight­ly mod­i­fied. Peo­ple just have to fol­low the rules and abide by the law," Lutch­me­di­al said.Since its en­force­ment last week, Lutch­me­di­al said the re­vised dress code had found favour with many vis­i­tors who had ex­pressed through the sug­ges­tion box, calls and let­ters to news­pa­per ed­i­tors, their sat­is­fac­tion by the man­age­ment's de­ci­sion to en­sure peo­ple were prop­er­ly dressed.