The Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT) is al­leg­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against their mem­bers by the Min­istry of Health (MOH), as they claimed amend­ed reg­u­la­tions al­low­ing for non-con­tact team sports is a fur­ther dis­ad­van­tage for them.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, BOATT’s vice pres­i­dent Satesh Moonasar called on Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to clar­i­fy the ex­emp­tion giv­en to Sports Mem­bers Clubs un­der the Club Act, Chap­ter 21:01.

The ex­emp­tion is with re­spect to reg­u­la­tions 4 (1) (b) of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions Le­gal No­tice 316 of 2020.

The Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tion (No 28) of 2020 out­lines the right to op­er­ate a club as de­fined in Sec­tion 2 of the Reg­is­tra­tion of Clubs Act.

BOATT claimed, “This al­lows these mem­ber clubs to op­er­ate in a nor­mal en­vi­ron­ment in which bars and restau­rants are a part, this will al­low in­di­vid­u­als to con­gre­gate in groups of five and more, which is against the reg­u­la­tions.”

BOATT ar­gued, “If so, this ex­emp­tion gives the rights to a par­tic­u­lar per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion to con­gre­gate, so­cial­ize, and have recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ty, whilst the rest of the pop­u­la­tion can­not. This is to­tal DIS­CRIM­I­NA­TION.”

Claim­ing this de­vel­op­ment came days af­ter the TTPS in­struct­ed that op­er­a­tions at the St An­drews Golf Club cease, BOATT ques­tioned if it was co­in­ci­den­tal that it was done just be­fore the Great Race is due to be held.

BOATT said this move by the au­thor­i­ties would en­able mem­bers of yacht clubs to con­gre­gate as they par­tic­i­pate in the sport­ing event.

As such, BOATT is de­mand­ing, “im­me­di­ate clar­i­fi­ca­tion on this mat­ter as all cit­i­zens have the right to equal treat­ment as en­shrined in the con­sti­tu­tion of T&T.”

Re­porter: An­na-Lisa Paul