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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Food sector monitors PM today, ready to reopen

by

Bavita Gopaulchan
1723 days ago
20201024
Passage to Asia chef Naresh Kumar prepares food for take away lunches earlier this week. The food sector is hoping Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announces some ease of COVID-19 restrictions today so that they can reopen for in-house dining.

Passage to Asia chef Naresh Kumar prepares food for take away lunches earlier this week. The food sector is hoping Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announces some ease of COVID-19 restrictions today so that they can reopen for in-house dining.

Shirley Bahadur

Af­ter two months of on­ly be­ing al­lowed to of­fer take-out ser­vices due to COVID-19 re­stric­tions, sev­er­al restau­rants across the coun­try say they are ready to dust off the chairs and put them back on the ground.

Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed CEO Si­mon Hardy told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day the com­pa­ny is ea­ger­ly await­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s me­dia brief­ing from To­ba­go at 2.30 pm to­day. In the event Row­ley lifts re­stric­tions, al­low­ing the re­sump­tion of in-house din­ing, Hardy said all of their five out­lets are ready to serve cus­tomers safe­ly.

“We were ready to have our in-house din­ing ser­vices back in Ju­ly/Au­gust when we were able to, tak­ing the usu­al safe­ty pre­cau­tions such as wear­ing masks, tak­ing tem­per­a­tures of cus­tomers and staff, fre­quent hand wash­ing and sani­tis­ing of con­tact sur­faces,” he said dur­ing a brief tele­phone in­ter­view.

“We have even in­stalled hand sani­tis­er units for cus­tomers and in­stalled ad­di­tion­al par­ti­tions pri­or to the sec­ond phase of re­stric­tions.”

In-house din­ing at restau­rants and bars was de­bared among oth­er mea­sures an­nounced by Row­ley on Au­gust 15, 2020 as the coun­try bat­tled to pre­vent com­mu­ni­ty spread of the virus.

Nali­ni Gal­barans­ingh, di­rec­tor of Singh’s Group of Com­pa­nies, mean­while it’s time T&T learn to live with the virus. She said while she un­der­stands the Gov­ern­ment’s con­cerns, busi­ness­es are suf­fer­ing. She not­ed that op­er­a­tions at their ho­tels, Grafton Beach Re­sort and Le Grand Courlan Spa Re­sort and their Waves Restau­rant and Bar have been se­vere­ly im­pact­ed.

“I had 170 staff at the mid­dle of March and laid off every­body for how many months and with the lit­tle bit of busi­ness we have had, we were able to keep our door ajar, not even open,” she lament­ed.

In his last ad­dress on the COVID pro­to­cols, Row­ley said bars, restau­rants and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions could be giv­en some le­nien­cy once there was no spike in cas­es. Ear­li­er this week, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said the to­tal av­er­age dai­ly cas­es had been on the de­cline, bring­ing hope to many busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens that there would be some ease to re­stric­tions to­day.

Glob­al Brands Lim­it­ed di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Sab­ga-Aboud said their teams are pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ty to­day.

“We have our teams on stand­by in case we need to re­open our din­ing rooms to en­sure we have a smooth tran­si­tion for when­ev­er the Prime Min­is­ter may re­open the econ­o­my, whether that may be this week­end or when­ev­er,” Sab­ga-Aboud said.

Roy­al Cas­tle CEO Sandy Roopc­hand al­so said they have a safe­ty plan in place to pro­tect both cus­tomers and staff in the event the Prime Min­is­ter gives the green light to­day.


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