The Gov­ern­ment has tak­en a de­ci­sion to close bars at 8 pm night­ly, fol­low­ing breach­es in so­cial dis­tanc­ing and oth­er COVID-19 guide­lines last week.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young at a news con­fer­ence this morn­ing.

Bars will con­tin­ue to open at 8 am.

The Min­is­ter called on bar op­er­a­tors to make last calls at a prop­er time be­fore 8 pm so that they could close at 8 pm.

He said po­lice will en­force the law of peo­ple gath­er­ing out­side of bars in large num­bers.

He said that any fur­ther breach­es will re­sult in tougher mea­sures.

Yes­ter­day, the Bar Own­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Trinidad Ho­tel, Restau­rants and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion and Trinidad and To­ba­go Bev­er­ages and Al­co­hol Al­liance said they will pro­hib­it the sale of al­co­hol to bars that breach the reg­u­la­tions. 

There are over 5,000 bars in T&T con­tribut­ing em­ploy­ment to as many as 20,000 peo­ple di­rect­ly and 100,000 in­di­rect­ly.