Head of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion Ra­jiv Diptee says that there is noth­ing pre­vent­ing su­per­mar­kets from sell­ing al­co­hol to the pub­lic.

Diptee’s com­ment comes af­ter re­ports that po­lice of­fi­cers were stop­ping su­per­mar­kets from sell­ing al­co­hol dur­ing the shut­down pe­ri­od.

Diptee said a big­ger threat to their op­er­a­tions comes from po­lice of­fi­cers mis­un­der­stand­ing that su­per­mar­kets are ex­empt from the five-peo­ple-in-a-space di­rec­tive from the Gov­ern­ment.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day Diptee called on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to is­sue a com­mu­nique to his of­fi­cers so that they un­der­stand that more than five peo­ple at a time could be in a gro­cery store.

“If we main­tain the prop­er spac­ing and so­cial dis­tanc­ing prac­tices, then for a gro­cery that is 10,000 square feet, you can have as much as 100 peo­ple in it,” Diptee said.

“Some of­fi­cers mis­un­der­stand that and have been threat­en­ing su­per­mar­kets,” he said.

Diptee said larg­er su­per­mar­kets have mark­ers on the floor, at times through their own car parks to fa­cil­i­tate so­cial dis­tanc­ing while peo­ple wait to en­ter the gro­cery.

“I spoke with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and I was as­sured that no su­per­mar­ket can be closed for hav­ing more than five peo­ple,” he said.

With re­gards to the ban on al­co­hol sale, CoP Gary Grif­fith said the TTPS has not re­ceived any di­rec­tive from the State to stop gro­ceries from sell­ing liquor.

De­spite that, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Ma­haraj West Side and Jum­bo Foods Ku­mar Ma­haraj has crit­i­cised some po­lice of­fi­cers for not in­ter­pret­ing the laws cor­rect­ly con­cern­ing how su­per­mar­kets should be op­er­at­ed dur­ing the cur­rent lock­down.

Ma­haraj, who is al­so a past pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets’ As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT), said on Sat­ur­day sev­er­al times over the last few weeks po­lice of­fi­cers have come to his busi­ness­es places in Ari­ma and Barataria say­ing that there should not be more than five per­sons in a su­per­mar­ket and even say­ing that he should not sell al­co­hol.

“Yes­ter­day (Fri­day) at Ari­ma West­side, a young po­lice of­fi­cer came and said that the liquor sec­tion has to be closed down and we are not al­lowed to sell liquor and I could on­ly have five cus­tomers. I run a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar op­er­a­tion. The au­thor­i­ties said we are es­sen­tial ser­vices and we can be flex­i­ble. An­oth­er po­lice of­fi­cer went to Jum­bo Foods in Barataria and put out cus­tomers.”

Ma­haraj said his store in Barataria had cus­tomers and em­ploy­ees in it, but the law on­ly re­lates to the num­ber of cus­tomers and not em­ploy­ees.

At the same time, he em­pha­sized that he has been com­ply­ing with the laws and do­ing every­thing to en­sure than his staff and cus­tomers are safe.

He said that not far from Jum­bo Foods is a Chi­nese su­per­mar­ket and that store was filled with cus­tomers but he has not seen the po­lice telling the own­ers there to re­duce the num­ber of cus­tomers.

“I am very an­noyed by this. It seems to be a bi­ased de­ci­sion. It seems that every po­lice of­fi­cer is in­ter­pret­ing the law dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Ma­haraj called up­on the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to have the po­lice of­fi­cers car­ry out their du­ty in a con­sis­tent way.

“It is hurt­ing my busi­ness. I have a 10,000 cus­tomer base in Ari­ma. These cus­tomers who need food will suf­fer if I close my doors. I have enough stocks for many more months. I have been in busi­ness for 58 years and I start­ed off with $100. I have con­tributed to the busi­ness in T&T for many years. I have al­ways fol­lowed the law,” he said.