An­drea Perez-Sobers
Se­nior Re­porter
an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne, is warn­ing that em­ploy­ment loss­es in the bar and restau­rant sec­tor are an im­por­tant sig­nal, as he re­spond­ed to re­ports of mul­ti­ple clo­sures in the leisure.

“The sig­nal is that it’s be­com­ing more dif­fi­cult to sur­vive, and this is just the be­gin­ning,” he said. Browne not­ed that while the num­bers be­ing bandied about clo­sures re­main a small frac­tion of rough­ly 25,000 busi­ness es­tab­lish­ments na­tion­wide, falling re­tail de­mand has broad­er im­pli­ca­tions.

“If re­tail de­mand is falling, this is go­ing to have sig­nif­i­cance all around for the re­tail in­dus­try, which ac­counts for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 per cent of the econ­o­my,” he said. Browne added that the sit­u­a­tion would be­come clear­er at mid-year, once the im­pact of high­er op­er­at­ing costs and pub­lic sec­tor wage in­creas­es is ful­ly known. 

On Wednes­day, man­age­ment of Scotchie’s Sports Bar on Tumpuna Road, Ari­ma, an­nounced its clo­sure through a me­dia re­lease shared on so­cial me­dia. The state­ment point­ed to ris­ing op­er­at­ing costs, not­ing: “For the past eight years we have cre­at­ed mem­o­rable events and life­time friend­ships at this lo­ca­tion, how­ev­er with the sud­den 100 per cent in­crease in al­co­hol, 400 per cent  in­crease in amuse­ment gam­ing tax from $6,000 to $24,000 per screen, in­creased liquor li­cence fee from $1,800 to $9,000 it is dif­fi­cult to stay afloat at this time.”

The op­er­a­tors said they had de­cid­ed to “quit while we are ahead” and re­assess the eco­nom­ic cli­mate to avoid dam­ag­ing the brand. The re­lease added that bars were near­ing re­cov­ery three years af­ter the COVID-19 dis­rup­tion be­fore the new fis­cal mea­sures took ef­fect.

“This vi­cious tax­a­tion not on­ly crip­pled the restau­rant and bars but al­so put its fu­ture in line with the ex­tinc­tion of an en­tire in­dus­try,” it stat­ed.

Over the week­end, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Bars and Restau­rants echoed those con­cerns in a pub­lic post en­ti­tled ‘An in­dus­try on the brink: A plea from the bar sec­tor of Trinidad and To­ba­go.’

The coali­tion said the sec­tor was fac­ing an un­prece­dent­ed cri­sis, not­ing that sales were al­ready de­clin­ing af­ter ex­cise du­ties on al­co­hol were in­creased in Oc­to­ber last year. The group said con­sumer be­hav­iour had shift­ed, with pa­trons in­creas­ing­ly pur­chas­ing al­co­hol from gro­ceries and liquor marts, many of which now func­tion as in­for­mal so­cial spaces.

“This shift has hol­lowed out tra­di­tion­al bars while cre­at­ing un­reg­u­lat­ed drink­ing en­vi­ron­ments,” the coali­tion stat­ed. It al­so linked de­clin­ing foot traf­fic to in­creased traf­fic fines and road­blocks.

“Heav­ier fines and cus­to­di­al penal­ties for drink­ing and dri­ving, cou­pled with fre­quent road­blocks in­spect­ing ve­hi­cles in de­tail, have dis­cour­aged peo­ple from leav­ing their com­mu­ni­ties al­to­geth­er,” the post said, adding that bars were be­ing forced to ad­just to col­laps­ing de­mand.

The coali­tion de­scribed re­cent in­creas­es in liquor li­cence fees and amuse­ment gam­ing tax­es as dis­pro­por­tion­ate. It not­ed that spir­it re­tail­er li­cence fees rose from $1,800 to $9,000, while amuse­ment gam­ing tax­es in­creased from $6,000 to $25,000 per ma­chine, rates it said now ex­ceed those ap­plied to casi­nos.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so chal­lenged claims that bars earn $30,000 per month, ar­gu­ing that such as­sump­tions “ig­nore the ba­sic eco­nom­ics of the busi­ness”. Da­ta from point-of-sale sys­tems, it said, show av­er­age week­day sales of about $2,000 and week­end sales of $3,000 to $4,000, with gross mar­gins of rough­ly 25 per cent, leav­ing lit­tle room to ab­sorb high­er costs.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has re­ject­ed claims that re­cent fis­cal mea­sures are sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for the clo­sure of bars and en­ter­tain­ment es­tab­lish­ments, while op­er­a­tors in the sec­tor con­tin­ue to press the Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er in­creased fees and tax­es.

Speak­ing with re­porters this week, Tan­coo ad­dressed pub­lic con­cern over re­ports of mul­ti­ple clo­sures, say­ing, “We’re see­ing a lot of bars get shut down and a lot of en­ter­tain­ment es­tab­lish­ments,” he said, be­fore chal­leng­ing me­dia cov­er­age of the is­sue.