Cops shut down 3 restaurants, 2 casinos in Port-of-Spain

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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Three fast-food restau­rants and two casi­nos were shut down in Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, as health in­spec­tors and po­lice of­fi­cers be­gan rolling out plans to make the city safer and more at­trac­tive to vis­i­tors and shop­pers as the Christ­mas sea­son ap­proach­es.

Al­though a to­tal of eight restau­rants around Broad­way, Char­lotte Street and In­de­pen­dence Square were in­spect­ed be­tween 6 pm on Fri­day to 1 am on Sat­ur­day, on­ly three were found to be in breach of health reg­u­la­tions.

Two casi­nos lo­cat­ed at Char­lotte Street and In­de­pen­dence Square were al­so shut down; whilst the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion seized 18 cas­es of mixed drinks, a case of pun­cheon rum and two cas­es of white rum from a pro­pri­etor op­er­at­ing on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade.

The Port-of-Spain Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment (CID) Op­er­a­tions Team led the mul­ti-agency in­tel­li­gence ex­er­cise, which al­so re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of 11 Span­ish-speak­ing and three Chi­nese im­mi­grants who were found to have il­le­gal­ly en­tered T&T.

Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials, who were al­so part of the ex­er­cise, were able to con­firm that one of the Chi­nese na­tion­als had been de­port­ed from Trinidad be­fore for il­le­gal en­try, and had re­turned.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed the ex­er­cise was based on in­tel­li­gence gath­ered on il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties in PoS.

Supt An­der­son Pa­ri­man said, “This op­er­a­tion tar­get­ed crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in a mul­ti­fac­eted way by part­ner­ing with the oth­er agen­cies.”

He warned that sim­i­lar op­er­a­tions would be con­duct­ed in the run-up to the Christ­mas sea­son.

“We are not afraid to go where there is crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and ap­ply pres­sure to those in­volved so that we can make safe spaces for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” Pa­ri­man said.

With re­spect to the clo­sure of the three restau­rants, he said, “The health in­spec­tors would have gone in the kitchen area and wit­nessed some un­san­i­tary con­di­tions that caused them to serve them with the no­tice to shut down. They will be re-in­spect­ed some­time this week.”

He fur­ther re­vealed, “The casi­nos did not have their gam­ing li­cence, so they have to go to the Board of In­land Rev­enue and get their busi­ness in or­der be­fore they can func­tion.”

Pressed to say what se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures the TTPS had put in place ahead of Christ­mas, he said their crime plan, which would usu­al­ly be rolled out at the be­gin­ning of De­cem­ber, may be rolled over in­to Car­ni­val.

“What we are do­ing in the CID is that we start­ed ear­ly, so most of the peo­ple that we are get­ting prob­lems with in Port-of-Spain is with the snatch­ing.

“We start­ed tar­get­ing them more than two weeks ago and we found a team that is work­ing round the clock. What we are get­ting in Port-of-Spain right now is the one or two dis­place­ments, like peo­ple who end up vic­tims of op­por­tu­ni­ty out­side the nor­mal hot ar­eas.”

Pa­ri­man said the ar­eas where these crim­i­nals op­er­at­ed from were be­ing mon­i­tored by uni­formed and plain-clothes of­fi­cers.

Fri­day’s ex­er­cise, which was co­or­di­nat­ed by Cpl For­ge­nie and PCs Ram­baran, Moti­lal, Jawahir, Lap­tiste, Ben­nette, O’gar­ro, Hoyte, Dover, O’Neil and Mor­ris, was su­per­vised by Supts Sub­hash Ramkhelawan and An­der­son Pa­ri­man.

Al­so as­sist­ing was the K-9, In­ter Agency Task Force, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, Air Sup­port Unit, Port-of-Spain Task Force, Li­cens­ing Of­fi­cers, Pub­lic Health Of­fi­cials, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Of­fi­cers.

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