RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment to in­crease the le­gal age lim­it for al­co­hol con­sump­tion, gam­bling, and mar­i­jua­na use has sparked con­cerns from the Own­ers Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (ODA), which is call­ing for clar­i­ty on how the change will im­pact hir­ing laws and en­force­ment prac­tices.

The leg­isla­tive move, aimed at tack­ling un­der­age sub­stance abuse and risky be­hav­iours, has re­ceived sup­port from the As­so­ci­a­tion.

How­ev­er, the pres­i­dent of the ODA Reval Chat­ter­goon warned that the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions—es­pe­cial­ly for busi­ness­es em­ploy­ing young work­ers—can­not be over­looked.

“At face val­ue, it is an ob­vi­ous choice that re­quires very lit­tle thought in sup­port­ing the pro­posed in­crease of the le­gal age lim­it for gam­bling, the con­sump­tion of al­co­hol and mar­i­jua­na use," Chat­ter­goon said.

He stressed the im­por­tance of con­sid­er­ing how these changes will be en­forced and what ef­fect they may have on the em­ploy­ment land­scape.

“The pro­posed in­creas­es in the age lim­its should not be viewed in a si­lo of con­sump­tion but [along­side] the ad­di­tion­al hu­man re­sources need­ed to com­pli­ment the cur­rent and overex­tend­ed TTPS man­pow­er and fixed as­sets re­quired to en­force, man­age and sup­port any leg­isla­tive changes," he added.

He ex­pressed con­cerns over how the changes could af­fect the hir­ing prac­tices of busi­ness­es such as gas sta­tions, con­ve­nience stores, su­per­mar­kets, and gam­ing es­tab­lish­ments—many of which re­ly heav­i­ly on young em­ploy­ees be­tween the ages of 18 and 21.

“The re­tail fu­el in­dus­try/gas sta­tions hire a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of per­sons who are new to the work­force and in most cas­es be­tween the ages of 18 and 21,” Chat­toor­goon not­ed.

“Will in­creas­ing the age lim­it for con­sump­tion of al­co­hol im­pact the age lim­it of our cashiers when cus­tomers pur­chase al­co­hol at our con­ve­nience stores? Would the gam­ing in­dus­try now be re­quired to on­ly hire per­sons over the age of twen­ty-five?” he asked.

He al­so ques­tioned the le­gal ram­i­fi­ca­tions, ask­ing: “Will these pro­posed changes im­pact the Liquor Li­cense Act? And if so, to what ex­tent?”

Chat­ter­goon said the ODA sup­ports the in­tent of the Prime Min­is­ter’s pol­i­cy shift.

“While the ODA sup­ports the in­crease in age lim­its for gam­bling, con­sump­tion of al­co­hol and use of mar­i­jua­na,” he said, “we hope that fore­go­ing ques­tions are con­sid­ered and that any sub­se­quent leg­isla­tive amend­ments are clear­ly de­fined should these changes im­pact the tens of thou­sands of per­sons em­ployed with­in the gam­ing and re­tail fu­el in­dus­try, restau­rants, su­per­mar­kets, phar­ma­cies, con­ve­nience stores and oth­er sim­i­lar busi­ness­es.”

Last Mon­day the Prime Min­is­ter ex­pressed con­cerns about how these vices were af­fect­ing youths.

She as­sert­ed there is no pol­i­tics as it re­lates to chil­dren, say­ing there must be leg­isla­tive changes to pro­tect the na­tion's youth.