Rishard Khan and

Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Some restau­rant out­lets will be tak­ing ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty and health pre­cau­tions as the food ser­vice re­sumes fol­low­ing an al­most three-month clo­sure amidst surg­ing COVID-19 cas­es.

While it’s an ex­cit­ing oc­ca­sion for stake­hold­ers and cus­tomers, two fast-food fran­chis­es are as­sur­ing pro­to­cols will be in place to en­sure prop­er health pro­to­cols are fol­lowed among the ex­pect­ed crowds. 
Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd CEO Si­mon Hardy told Guardian Me­dia there will be an in­creased se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence at their KFC restau­rants. 
“We are im­ple­ment­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in KFC, some ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty just to help man­age any crowds that we might ex­pect due to the surge,” Hardy said yes­ter­day.
“We’re not go­ing any­where. So what we’re just ask­ing for is that peo­ple fol­low the rules that we’ve all be­come ac­cus­tomed to. Fol­low the three Ws.”
He said staff were hard at work over the past week get­ting their branch­es ready for to­day’s re­open­ing. KFC, Sub­way, Piz­za Hut, TGI Fri­days and Star­bucks are all fran­chis­es un­der Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd.
Glob­al Brands Lim­it­ed di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Sab­ga-Aboud al­so said there will be in­creased sur­veil­lance for ad­her­ence to pub­lic health pro­to­col at their var­i­ous restau­rants. 
“We are go­ing to have some team mem­bers on the...floor of our restau­rants to en­sure com­pli­ance - to en­sure cus­tomers sani­tise their hands when they walk through the doors, en­sure that they wash their hands (and that) all those dif­fer­ent pro­to­cols are be­ing fol­lowed,” he said.
On the re­open­ing, Sab­ga-Aboud said: “We’re very ex­cit­ed for all our stores to be re­opened. We are ex­cit­ed to wel­come cus­tomers back in­to our doors, as well as our staff through our doors, who, I know, are hap­py to get back to work af­ter hav­ing been out for the last 10 weeks.”
Glob­al Brands Lim­it­ed is the par­ent com­pa­ny of Piz­za Boys, Church’s Chick­en, Rit­u­als Cof­fee House and Donut Boys. 
While food ser­vices are al­lowed to re­open to­day, no in-house din­ing,r con­sump­tion of any food or drink on the precincts, premis­es or road­side of the es­tab­lish­ments, or the sale of al­co­hol is al­lowed. They are, how­ev­er, free to do take-away ser­vice, road­side pick-up, curb­side pick-up and dri­ve-through ser­vices. 

Cops mon­i­tor­ing sit­u­a­tion too

Mean­while, those who are ea­ger to head out to their favourite restau­rant or road­side ven­dors are be­ing warned by the TTPS to fol­low all road traf­fic laws or run the risk of be­ing tick­et­ed.

TTPS Road Safe­ty Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor, Sgt Brent Bat­son, yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia, “We are aware with food re­open­ing, there is go­ing to be more traf­fic and we will be com­menc­ing more en­force­ment dur­ing the day. We are al­so aware that per­sons may be tempt­ed to gath­er out­side or close to these food vend­ing ar­eas and may have cool­ers with al­co­hol to go with their meals and there­fore, part of the in­creased pa­trol will be DUI test­ing,” Bat­son warned.

He said dur­ing the last lift­ing of re­stric­tions, those who broke road traf­fic laws plead­ed for le­nien­cy, cit­ing the pan­dem­ic.

This ex­cuse will not be ac­cept­ed from to­day, Bat­son said.

“Imag­ine, you are stop­ping to buy a dou­bles for $5 and you end up pay­ing a $1,000 no park­ing tick­et, it will be a very ex­pen­sive dou­bles. From the last time, peo­ple were get­ting up­set with the po­lice, say­ing ‘It’s COVID, al­lyuh could give us a break with the tick­ets’, but the of­fi­cer has his job to do to and you can’t be block­ing up traf­fic to get some­thing to eat,” he said.

Bat­son said the pa­trols will al­so be fo­cused on spe­cif­ic ar­eas where there are food strips that usu­al­ly cause traf­fic.

“For ex­am­ple, Ari­api­ta Av­enue, the area by Ed­die Hart ground, we are look­ing at those ar­eas where there is a lot of road­side vend­ing, which some­times re­sults in a lot of traf­fic be­cause per­sons are not ad­her­ing to the road rules. We are go­ing to in­crease pa­trols in ar­eas where we know there are known ar­eas of con­gre­ga­tion and road­side vend­ing.”

Bat­son al­so said since the po­lice had upped their pres­ence on the na­tion’s roads in the hours be­fore the night­ly cur­few goes in­to ef­fect sev­er­al weeks ago, there have been few­er ac­ci­dents. He said the po­lice have been do­ing all they can to en­sure the na­tion’s roads are safer for the trav­el­ling pub­lic.

He al­so sent out con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of Kevin Thomp­son, four, Re­ane Nayan and her boyfriend An­dre Ross, both 22, who died in two sep­a­rate traf­fic ac­ci­dents over the week­end.

Yes­ter­day, Bat­son said there have been 45 road traf­fic deaths for the year, as com­pared to 57 for the same pe­ri­od last year - a 21 per cent de­crease.