RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an event at Queen’s Hall in St Ann's over the week­end, which he says had all the fea­tures of a Car­ni­val band launch.

Grif­fith said as far as the TTPS is con­cerned, that event was a pub­lic par­ty. 

He not­ed that ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 4 (1) (d) of THE PUB­LIC HEALTH [2019 NOV­EL CORO­N­AVIRUS (2019-nCoV)] REG­U­LA­TIONS, 2021, it is an of­fence to hold pub­lic par­ties or pub­lic fetes.

"The TTPS will launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this event," Grif­fith said.

“While the event was car­ried on tele­vi­sion and on so­cial me­dia plat­forms, the video footage was quite clear in that it showed nu­mer­ous pa­trons in­side Queen’s Hall danc­ing to the mu­sic of sev­er­al artistes," he added.

CoP to meet man­agers of na­tion­al per­for­mance spaces

The top cop said he al­so took note of a no­tice from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, in­di­cat­ing that four of their premis­es were open for busi­ness—Queen’s Hall, Na­pari­ma Bowl, the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), and the South­ern As­sem­bly for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA).

Grif­fith said the TTPS in­tends to meet with the Man­agers of these premis­es to ex­plain to them that in the case of Queen’s Hall, there was cer­tain­ly a breach of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions.

"The law was quite clear and there must be a lev­el play­ing field for all," Grif­fith said.

The CoP al­so not­ed that he has been in­formed that sim­i­lar events—like the one which took place at Queen’s Hall on Sun­day—are be­ing planned and be­ing ad­ver­tised on so­cial me­dia.

He added that pro­mot­ers, in the ab­sence of Car­ni­val 2021, are try­ing to be cre­ative by or­gan­is­ing events in pub­lic spaces with all the in­gre­di­ents of a par­ty, or in some cas­es, a band launch­ing.

The top cop is re­mind­ing these pro­mot­ers and the pub­lic to be mind­ful of what has hap­pened in oth­er coun­tries where such events took place, and that their health fa­cil­i­ties be­came so over­bur­dened that space in hos­pi­tals ran out.

He added that the TTPS in­tends to fol­low the Reg­u­la­tions with the sole pur­pose of pre­vent­ing the spread of COVID-19.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er said he al­so no­ticed that on week­ends, the coun­try’s beach­es are over­crowd­ed and that many per­sons were not wear­ing masks when they en­ter or leave the wa­ter or are seen eat­ing or drink­ing.

He made it known that it makes it dif­fi­cult for the TTPS to strict­ly en­force the wear­ing of mask reg­u­la­tions but made it clear that if the beach­es be­come over­crowd­ed or un­man­age­able:

“The TTPS can act by dis­pers­ing any crowd which threat­ens the safe­ty of oth­ers.”

Cul­ture Min­is­ter to meet man­age­ment of na­tion­al per­for­mance spaces

Mean­while, the Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Sen­a­tor Ran­dall Mitchell, has called for a meet­ing with the Board and Man­age­ment of all na­tion­al per­for­mance spaces un­der the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, to ur­gent­ly re­vise the op­er­a­tions of these per­for­mance spaces in line with the let­ter, spir­it and in­tent of the COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions and Pro­to­cols.

The move comes af­ter the Queen’s Hall event on Sun­day fea­tur­ing Sekon Star.  Min­is­ter Mitchell re­port­ed­ly ex­pressed con­cerned over what he saw in the videos of the event.

Min­is­ter Mitchell says he was ad­vised that the event, Sekon Sun­day, was record­ed to be broad­cast.  In­vi­ta­tions were is­sued to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 per­sons which is 30 per­cent, or well un­der the 50 per­cent ca­pac­i­ty al­lowed by Queen’s Hall COVID-19 guide­lines for the host­ing of events at its venue.

An of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by the min­istry re­ports that all in­vi­tees were sub­ject­ed to the fol­low­ing pro­to­cols, among oth­ers, which are in place at Queen’s Hall:

●   Ad­her­ence to phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing

●   Pro­vi­sion of name, ad­dress, phone con­tact and email ad­dress to al­low for con­tact trac­ing

●   Tem­per­a­ture check and symp­tom screen­ing

●   Sani­ti­sa­tion of hands up­on en­try us­ing sinks for san­i­tiz­ers

●   Wear­ing of masks which must be kept on dur­ing the per­for­mance/ac­tiv­i­ty

Min­is­ter Mitchell al­so is as­sur­ing the pub­lic of the Min­istry’s com­mit­ment to Pub­lic Health Guide­lines and Pro­to­cols to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19.