DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

There are mixed re­ac­tions fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that her Gov­ern­ment in­tends to raise the le­gal age for al­co­hol con­sump­tion from 18 to 21 and for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use from 18 to 25. While some wel­come the move, oth­ers said it was mean­ing­less with­out prop­er en­force­ment.

Bar­tender Fabi­an Strive told Guardian Me­dia he doesn’t be­lieve the pro­posed age in­crease will make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence, de­spite con­cerns about youth and al­co­hol con­sump­tion. He said stronger par­ent­ing and bet­ter so­cial sys­tems are more im­por­tant.

“If some­one is go­ing to be led astray or fall vic­tim to al­co­holism, the law is not re­al­ly gonna stop that be­cause peo­ple do il­le­gal things; they take il­le­gal drugs, they do all dif­fer­ent things. Whether it’s against the law or not, that does not re­al­ly stop it.”

He said bars gen­er­al­ly at­tract an old­er crowd, so he doesn’t be­lieve the pro­posed changes will sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect their rev­enue. In­stead, he be­lieves par­ty pro­mot­ers are like­ly to feel the biggest im­pact.

While the Bar Own­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has no ob­jec­tion to in­creas­ing the le­gal drink­ing age, it fears the move could back­fire, warn­ing that re­strict­ing ac­cess in li­cenced venues may push young peo­ple to­ward un­reg­u­lat­ed sources.

Pres­i­dent of the Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT) Satesh Moonasar said al­co­hol was wide­ly avail­able through shops and par­lours, which are of­ten the go-to sources for un­der­age drinkers.

“They would now go to the il­le­gal places where al­co­hol is sold and not mon­i­tored, not reg­u­larised or not en­forced by the law. And they would still have ac­cess to the al­co­hol in any case. So, what we are say­ing from the as­so­ci­a­tion’s stand­point is that you need to deal with the il­le­gal part and the il­le­gal sales of al­co­hol be­fore you can deal with the raise of age.”

A casi­no se­cu­ri­ty guard who has wit­nessed both the highs and lows of the in­dus­try is wel­com­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s move to raise the le­gal age for gam­bling, al­co­hol, and mar­i­jua­na con­sump­tion.

Gary Roach said young peo­ple should fo­cus on de­vel­op­ing them­selves pos­i­tive­ly, rather than en­gag­ing in these ac­tiv­i­ties.

“We are se­cur­ing our fu­ture. In­stead of hav­ing them smok­ing, gam­bling and drink­ing, wait un­til they reach 25 so they can do those things. Se­cure a trade, se­cure a job, be your­self, and be­yond that, you could en­joy your life. Our youths are go­ing astray too much by gam­bling and drink­ing.”

The On­line Gam­ing Agents As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (OGAATT) has a dif­fer­ent take on the pro­pos­al, agree­ing that the age lim­it can be raised but not as high as 25.

OGAATT pres­i­dent Dean Per­sad said agents have ob­served that a more ma­ture de­mo­graph­ic tends to vis­it their booths. How­ev­er, he ex­pressed con­cern about Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to re­strict a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of their cus­tomer base.

“We have no prob­lem with it ris­ing, maybe up to about 20 or 21, but 25 we find is a big stretch, and it will def­i­nite­ly af­fect the play­ers who par­tic­i­pate in these games at the ter­mi­nals. So, which will mean that we will have a small­er in­come; our com­mis­sion will be small­er.”

Per­sad added that OGAATT in­tends to re­quest a meet­ing with Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss the way for­ward.

While as­sur­ing that the Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion reg­u­lar­ly ad­vis­es band­lead­ers to im­ple­ment mea­sures pre­vent­ing un­der­age mas­quer­aders from be­ing served al­co­hol, pres­i­dent Mark Ayen be­lieves Gov­ern­ment should fo­cus on en­forc­ing ex­ist­ing laws first.

“It’s quite preva­lent that there are per­sons un­der 18 in these clubs who are con­sum­ing al­co­hol. So, we of­ten won­der, if we in­crease the age lim­it, are we go­ing to en­force it now?”

Ayen said car­ni­val bands op­er­ate with a reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem, and he has urged band­lead­ers to con­duct prop­er due dili­gence by re­quest­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from mas­quer­aders.

“You have to have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as one, a busi­nessper­son; two, a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go; and three, a leader in the in­dus­try. You have to take the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that you’re in line with the law.”

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith wel­comes the move, but said while the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed in­creas­es are well-in­ten­tioned, it miss­es the re­al is­sue, which re­mains en­force­ment.

In a state­ment, Grif­fith de­scribed the move as “no­ble” but warned that rais­ing the age from 18 to 21 would do lit­tle to curb un­der­age drink­ing if ex­ist­ing laws con­tin­ue to go un­en­forced.

“Present­ly, the age lim­it is 18 years, but every night­club, every bar, every fete, every all-in­clu­sive—not one bar­tender chal­lenges any cus­tomer to show their ID card to ver­i­fy if they are 18 or over. Not one bar own­er has been charged for do­ing what they do night­ly,” he said.

Grif­fith added that teenagers as young as 15 are reg­u­lar­ly found drink­ing in pub­lic venues with­out con­se­quence, un­der­scor­ing what he sees as a sys­temic fail­ure in reg­u­la­tion.

“So, al­ter­ing it from 18 to 21 will not fix the prob­lem. It is about en­force­ment go­ing hand in hand with al­ter­ing the age lim­it,” he stressed.

Grif­fith’s com­ments echo broad­er con­cerns from in­dus­try stake­hold­ers who be­lieve ex­ist­ing reg­u­la­tions need to be prop­er­ly im­ple­ment­ed be­fore new leg­is­la­tion is in­tro­duced.