GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) is sound­ing the alarm over pro­posed leg­isla­tive re­forms that they be­lieve could dis­rupt the en­ter­tain­ment and tourism sec­tors.

In a news re­lease is­sued on Thurs­day, the TTPA said it has for­mal­ly re­quest­ed meet­ings with the rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and looks for­ward to en­gag­ing in con­struc­tive di­a­logue in the com­ing weeks.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said the aim is to en­sure that any leg­isla­tive changes re­flect bal­anced, in­clu­sive out­comes that ben­e­fit all stake­hold­ers.

“As key dri­vers of the en­ter­tain­ment and tourism sec­tors—crit­i­cal pil­lars of eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion—we are com­mit­ted to con­tribut­ing mean­ing­ful­ly to the coun­try’s progress. We sup­port the stat­ed na­tion­al ob­jec­tive of ex­pand­ing the non-en­er­gy sec­tor and re­main ded­i­cat­ed to play­ing an ac­tive role in achiev­ing this goal,” the TTPA said.

The state­ment from the pro­mot­ers came af­ter state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar while speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’s (UNC) Mon­day Night Re­port in Pe­nal. In her com­ments, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment recog­nised the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing press­ing so­cial chal­lenges and looked for­ward to mod­ern, com­pre­hen­sive and fit for pur­pose leg­is­la­tion that sup­ports na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

She con­firmed the Gov­ern­ment would ta­ble leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber to raise the le­gal age for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use to 25 years. She al­so an­nounced an in­crease in the le­gal age for al­co­hol use to 21 years and old­er.

She an­nounced pend­ing leg­isla­tive changes con­cern­ing the reg­u­la­tion of pub­lic events and noise nui­sance.

The Gov­ern­ment plans to en­force manda­to­ry cut-off times for out­door fetes and mu­sic trucks that op­er­ate out­side en­closed build­ings. While ex­emp­tions will be made for fes­ti­vals, she said mu­sic trucks have be­come “a scourge” to com­mu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly af­fect­ing the ill and el­der­ly.

Em­pha­sis­ing that it recog­nised the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing press­ing so­cial chal­lenges, the TTPA said it looked for­ward to mod­ern, com­pre­hen­sive and fit-for-pur­pose leg­is­la­tion that sup­ports na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

In giv­ing his take on the leg­isla­tive pro­pos­als, Regi­nald McLean, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA), told Guardian Me­dia he did not see a prob­lem with rais­ing the age lim­it for drink­ing and mar­i­jua­na use “based on what is go­ing on in the coun­try at present” stat­ing that it would ac­tu­al­ly be good.

How­ev­er, he said, “I want to put a lit­tle caveat in there. How does this pro­pos­al af­fect an 18 year old who is out of school who is com­ing to do a work in a bar or work in a casi­no? Are they go­ing to be al­lowed to work? Be­cause if you change that, that could be detri­men­tal on the econ­o­my and the so­cial things of the coun­try.

“I’m bring­ing that up be­cause the thing about it, I’m now come out of school, the on­ly place I might get a job is in a bar or a restau­rant or some­thing like that and you’re telling me, No, I can’t work there un­til I’m 21 or 25, in a casi­no. So that’s that would be my con­cern,” he said.

In a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, the On­line Gam­ing Agents As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (OGAATT) had a dif­fer­ent take on the pro­pos­al, agree­ing that the age lim­it can be raised but not as high as 25.

OGAATT pres­i­dent Dean Per­sad said agents ob­served that a more ma­ture de­mo­graph­ic tend­ed to vis­it booths. How­ev­er, he ex­pressed con­cern about Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to re­strict a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of their cus­tomer base.

Per­sad added that OGAATT al­so in­tend­ed to re­quest a meet­ing with Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss the way for­ward.