RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

A week ago, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced she will bring leg­is­la­tion to the Par­lia­ment seek­ing to raise the age lim­it of al­co­hol con­sump­tion to 21 years and gam­bling and the use of mar­i­jua­na to age 25.

Since then, pres­i­dent of the Own­er Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Reval Chat­ter­goon, has point­ed to sev­er­al far-reach­ing con­se­quences if gov­ern­ment is not clear and care­ful in its craft­ing the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.

Chat­ter­goon as­serts he has no is­sue with the pro­pos­al but says the gov­ern­ment must con­sid­er all fac­tors—in­clud­ing youth em­ploy­ment and how it can im­pact a fes­ti­val like Car­ni­val.

“How will that af­fect car­ni­val?” he asked. “I don’t have the fig­ures to say we have x-amount of tourism com­ing in, or for the num­ber of per­sons with­in that age lim­it com­ing in for that pur­pose [Car­ni­val]. We have to re­al­ly think about this.”

Not­ing that Car­ni­val does gen­er­ate con­sid­er­able for­eign ex­change for mul­ti­ple sec­tors of the econ­o­my, Chat­ter­goon ar­gues there must be a way to en­sure we don’t miss out on po­ten­tial forex earn­ings.

“We don’t want the ‘great­est show on earth’—and Trinidad is well known for that—to sud­den­ly shift be­cause of this leg­is­la­tion,” he said.

Chat­ter­goon is call­ing on gov­ern­ment to have con­sul­ta­tions with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers who will be im­pact­ed by the pro­posed leg­isla­tive changes.