JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

If ven­dors don’t ad­here to the cor­po­ra­tion’s COVID-19 guide­lines, the food vil­lage at the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah, in Tacarigua, will be shut down, ac­cord­ing to Chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Kwasi Robin­son.

While the food vil­lage is known to be a spot where peo­ple typ­i­cal­ly eat and lime in large num­bers, a dri­ve-through sys­tem was im­ple­ment­ed last week­end.

“We are just try­ing to keep the food vil­lage open as long as pos­si­ble. We are try­ing to pre­vent peo­ple from con­gre­gat­ing there. If that doesn’t work, it will be closed,” he said.

Con­sumers are sup­posed to pull up to the car park, pur­chase food and then leave, Chair­man Robin­son said.

How­ev­er, he says he has re­ports of peo­ple, in­clud­ing ven­dors and con­sumers, not fol­low­ing the pro­ce­dures.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, on Mon­day morn­ing, there were no dri­ve-through trans­ac­tions tak­ing place; on­ly tra­di­tion­al, per­son-to-per­son trans­ac­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Ro­bel­to Guisep­pi, own­er of Rob­bie’s Dou­bles, ven­dors are try­ing to make the sys­tem work, but it ap­pears as though con­sumers are not tak­ing to it.

“Right now, it’s a lit­tle hard for them to ad­just with the dri­ve-through thing be­cause we, as Trinida­di­ans, like the stand-up-and-eat thing. This dri­ve-through thing, that’s an Amer­i­can thing. I can’t see it work­ing for us in the long run,” Guisep­pi said.

He ex­pressed con­cern that the sys­tem may, in turn, wors­en his al­ready-de­clin­ing sales.

“Peo­ple don’t car­ry away dou­bles. Peo­ple like to eat it on the spot. Some of them, if they can’t eat dou­bles on the spot, they are gone. So more pres­sure on the dou­bles man,” he added.

Robert Sam­my-Lal, who bought dou­bles in-per­son, short­ly be­fore talk­ing to us, be­lieved the de­liv­ery sys­tem was a good idea.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that he pre­ferred to eat food at the car park, rather than take it and car­ry it home.

It would be dif­fi­cult for con­sumers to adapt, giv­en our coun­try’s culi­nary cul­ture, he added.

“Trinida­di­ans are so used to sit­ting and eat­ing here, like my­self, I sit and eat. But, if that’s the on­ly sys­tem, I will have to use it. We are fol­low­ing the Amer­i­cans,” Sam­my-Lal added.

How­ev­er, there was a big­ger con­cern for the ven­dors—the dras­tic de­cline in sales that they are all fac­ing, in light of the pan­dem­ic.

With a for­lorn ex­pres­sion on his face, a co­conut ven­dor, who did not want to give his name, lament­ed the de­cline in rev­enues that he’s faced.

“It re­al­ly bad. The slow­down re­al ter­ri­ble. Every­body bawl­ing. This virus has come to lick us up here, boy,” he said.

“Bills will have to wait for now,” he added.