‘We have to work with it’
Bar owners adjust to new curfew time for some parishes
With a tighter curfew time for Kingston, St Andrew, St Catherine and Clarendon due to increased COVID numbers in those parishes, bar operators are bracing for a pinch.
Effective last Saturday, and until September 2, the nightly curfew will start at 7 p.m. hours earlier than the rest of the island.
Community bars were ordered closed in March to help stem the spread of COVID-19, but were allowed to reopen in May under strict protocols.
Among the protocols, operators could not have more than five persons inside the bar at any time, including the bartender, and no stools, benches, chairs or tables were to be made available to patrons inside. The bars also cannot open before 11 a.m. Sandra, who operates Sandra’s Hotspot on Spanish Town Road, told THE STAR that she has no issue with the new curfew time.
“I agree with it. The new curfew time will affect me and sales because a bar is a night thing. But we have to comply with whatever the Government does, because the cases are getting out of hand. We have to work around the time,” she said. “We have to do the best thing on our part, because it’s our health. We can’t think about money right now and we can’t put money over our health.” But Sandra said she believes the Government should have given operators an extra hour, allowing them to go until 8 p.m.
“But we have to work with it because it’s just for two weeks. If it continues, we have to just bear with it because it’s for our safety,” she added.
Kareen Rowe, another bar operator, said business hasn’t fully recovered from the lockdown, so the new hours will also affect business.
“But we afi live with it. The people dem who a cuss only a think bout the money and not dem health,” she said. Kareen says she will comply with the 7 p.m. curfew but opening earlier will not work for her. “It nuh make sense me open earlier because my customers dem come dung in a the evening. Dem nah go come in a the morning so it nuh make no sense. Me caa do nothing better … the new time a fi my own good so me afi live with it,” she said.