SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

If you are one of the 390 peo­ple who have been charged with breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance by not wear­ing a mask in a pub­lic place, you won’t be able to pay the $1,000 fine un­til af­ter Oc­to­ber 16, act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Wen­dell Williams has said.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s the Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Williams said the Ju­di­cia­ry has is­sued a no­tice that it will not ac­cept pay­ments for the tick­etable of­fence un­til Oc­to­ber 16.

Williams said up un­til Thurs­day morn­ing, 390 peo­ple were charged for the of­fence.

He said while po­lice of­fi­cers are en­forc­ing the law, they are al­so giv­ing out masks to those who are with­out.

“In my mind I think peo­ple are con­form­ing. I think some­times it takes a while to con­form - of course we would have a stub­born few so that’s where we would make sure they get the mes­sage,” Williams said.

He said with the Ju­di­cia­ry’s an­nounce­ment, those who have al­ready been tick­et­ed will not be held li­able for miss­ing the 14-day win­dow in which the fine is sup­posed to be paid.

“As it stands now the Ju­di­cia­ry has is­sued some prac­tice pro­ce­dures which states that no fine can be paid un­til Oc­to­ber 16 so even though peo­ple have been tick­et­ed, the ju­di­cia­ry is not quite in a po­si­tion to be able to re­ceive the pay­ments- that will be sort­ed out as we go along,” Williams said.

For those who wish to con­test their tick­ets, Williams said the court has a des­ig­nat­ed day of the week for those ap­pli­ca­tions to be made.

“I know there is a mea­sure by the Ju­di­cia­ry for the Thurs­day be­fore the hear­ing sup­posed to come up on a Tues­day that per­sons who are tick­et­ed and wish to con­test the tick­et that they con­tact the court at a par­tic­u­lar num­ber they will be giv­en and they will be ad­vised of the pro­ce­dure, that has a lot to do with the vir­tu­al court.”