Sev­en peo­ple who have been ar­rest­ed and charged dur­ing the Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) To­ba­go reg­is­tra­tion process at Shep­herd's Inn, Store Bay Lo­cal Road, Crown Point, will ap­pear be­fore a Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trate Court on Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 19.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, they were ar­rest­ed for al­leged­ly breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tion, re­lat­ed to so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

Ja­nine Collins, 36, a wait­ress, of St Au­gus­tine; Nao­mi Alexan­der, 21, a stu­dent, of Gov­ern­ment Trace, To­ba­go; Shevonne Hartell, 37, a man­ag­er, of Top Hill, Pem­broke, To­ba­go; Mia Charles, 31, self-em­ployed, of Robert Street, Bon Ac­cord, To­ba­go; An­tho­ny Cae­sar, 33, life­guard, of Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go; Jen­nifer La­toch, 47, self-em­ployed, of Cot­tage Street, Gold­en Lane; and Kwe­si Beck­les, 42, labour­er, were ar­rest­ed and charged, a TTPS's news re­lease said.

The re­lease said when the po­lice ar­rived at the scene at 9 am, the crowd was told they were breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions; while some obeyed, those who re­fused were ar­rest­ed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that from as ear­ly as mid­night on Fri­day, peo­ple be­gan lin­ing up at Shep­herds Inn hop­ing to be first in line to reg­is­ter for DSS To­ba­go.

Cars lined the street for over one mile, and peo­ple hud­dled in groups, un­der build­ings on ei­ther side of the road. Oth­ers were in the inn, await­ing their turn to be called, as num­bered chits were is­sued to those try­ing to reg­is­ter.

Heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers were at the en­trance of the prop­er­ty.

Reg­is­tra­tion be­gan at 9 am.

An hour and a half in­to reg­is­tra­tion, po­lice ar­rest­ed the sev­en peo­ple for breach­ing COVID-19 so­cial dis­tanc­ing reg­u­la­tions and dis­persed the crowd as they too were break­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance. Un­der the or­di­nance, more than ten peo­ple can­not gath­er in one place.

Guardian Me­dia had a very brief ex­change with DSS's Ker­ron "Prezze" Clarke at the inn's en­trance. Asked how the morn­ing's op­er­a­tions were pro­ceed­ing, he said, " It was very good."

Asked if it was as good as last week­end's op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go, he said, "Last week, we just pass through, but this is the for­mal launch."

He de­clined to an­swer fur­ther ques­tions.

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to a young la­dy from Crown Point. She had "in­vest­ed five hands of $3,500 each," she said

"I would have in­vest­ed more, but you could on­ly do five hands at a time, and af­ter that, you have to go to the back of the line," she said.

She al­so said when she got to the inn at 2 am there, were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 peo­ple in the line. She left at 11:30 am.

A sou-sou hand takes one-28 busi­ness days, ac­cord­ing to a re­ceipt giv­en to those who reg­is­tered.

It al­so stat­ed, "Please un­der­stand the risk you are get­ting your­self in­to. This is a non-re­fund­able trans­ac­tion. A stack­ing method is utilised for place­ment of in­di­vid­u­als.

Please al­low the pass­ing of 72 hours for your name to be added to the chat."

Speak­ing at a post-bud­get fo­rum on Thurs­day in Bel­mont, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley la­belled DSS as a "can­cer that will eat the soul of the na­tion."

He said Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing help from the UK and Bar­ba­dos po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate the $22 mil­lion seized and re­turned to DSS La Hor­quet­ta by po­lice, last month.